Regional Co-ordinating Council Meets in Bolga

Bolgatanga, Jan. 31, GNA - The Upper East Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) on Thursday appointed a three-man committee headed by Mr Robert Ajene, a retired educationist, to look into the problems hindering educational development and to submit a comprehensive report to the Regional Minister within three weeks.

This followed a lengthy deliberation on the subject at the first ordinary meeting of the Council for this year in Bolgatanga, which was attended by District Chief Executives (DCEs), District Co-ordinating Directors, Presiding Members of the district assemblies, chiefs, and heads of departments.

In his presentation at the meeting, Mr Kenneth Dabuo, Regional Director of Education, announced that the Upper East currently faced a shortage of 1,960 teachers from primary to training college levels. He said the number of teacher vacancies at the primary school level alone stood at 693, while that at the JSS level was 357.

"The present state of affairs has had severe adverse effects on academic standards in our schools" he observed, urging District Assemblies and local communities to join hands with the Ghana Education Service (GES) in its efforts to retain teachers in the rural areas.

Mr Dabuo stated that in line with Government's policy of upgrading one senior secondary school to serve as a model school in each district, a total of 32.3 billion cedis would be spent on rehabilitation and construction works to bring up the Bolgatanga and Bawku Secondary Schools to an appreciable national standard.

He said at the basic level, about 587.6 million cedis had been allocated to each of the region's six districts for the construction of four six-classroom primary school blocks and ancillary facilities. Mr Dabuo commended World Vision International, ActionAid Ghana, UNICEF, Link, World Food Programme and other partner NGO's for their immense assistance to educational institutions in the region.

The Regional Minister, Mr Mahami Salifu, in his opening address bemoaned the mass exodus of teachers from the area, resulting in a further aggravation of an already inadequate teacher-to-pupil ratio. He urged district assemblies to introduce sponsorship packages for trainee teachers and to provide other incentives that would motivate qualified teachers to work in the Rural communities.

Mr Salifu called on District Assemblies to create budget lines for the provision of residential accommodation for health workers in the communities. "Since most health staff refuse posting to rural communities under the pretext that there is no accommodation, let us kill this pretence by providing accommodation at all health posts," he said.

Mr Salifu was not happy about the mode of disbursement of the Poverty Alleviation Fund (PAF) in some parts of the region, and said reports reaching his office had it that the allocation of the fund to beneficiaries was being done unfairly.

He admonished Presiding Members who serve as chairpersons on the Credit Approval Committees of the PAF to be transparent in its disbursement to avoid criticism from the public.

The Regional Minister also called on DCEs along the borders to encourage the formation of watchdog committees to assist the security agencies to check cattle rustling and fuel smuggling which are now becoming a major problem in those areas.

He announced that the police training depot the region had long been waiting for would soon be commissioned at Pwalugu, as most of the logistic problems that led to the delay in its take-off had now been resolved.