Wa Municipality beset with educational challenges

The educational system in the Wa area is still beset with challenges in spite of efforts by the Wa Municipal Assembly to help address the concerns with investments in the Junior High Schools.

Out of 2,134 candidates presented for the BECE in the Municipality this year, 1,289 of them representing 61.1 per cent passed and this is lower than the 68.3 per cent passes for 2011.

Teacher absenteeism, inadequate teaching and learning materials, congestion in classrooms in some schools and lack of monitoring are the major reasons accounting for the average performance of the pupils.

Alhaji Duogu Yakubu, the Municipal Chief Executive, made this known at the second ordinary meeting of the Assembly on Tuesday.

He said perennial shortfalls in meeting revenue targets continue to plague the Assembly as it could only collect 200.092.81 Ghana Cedis representing 54.53 per cent of the projected sum of 366,919.00 as at August.

Alhaji Yakubu attributed their poor performance in revenue generation in recent times to the absence of a Valuation Officer who is responsible for issuing demand notices for the payment of revenue.

He said the District Assemblies Common Fund which supports the Assemblies to carry out their programmes had not been regular with the first quarter allocation of 60,000 Ghana Cedis arriving in July while that of the second quarter had just been received.