Obuasi, May 31, GNA - Heads of public basic schools in the Obuasi Municipality have been urged to team up with their teachers in preparing the school performance improvement plan (SPIP) for accessing the Capitation Grant for their schools.

Mr Johnny Owusu-Boadi, the Municipal Director of Education, who made the call noted that the teachers were the activity implementers and therefore they should be involved in preparing the SPIP to ensure the judicious use of the Grant.

Addressing members of the Obuasi branch of Conference of Heads of Basic Schools (COHBS) at the beginning of term meeting at Obuasi, Mr Owusu-Boadi reminded them that the grant was "not meant for soft loans but rather to help improve teaching and learning facilities in the school. "See to decorate your classrooms with teaching and learning materials so as to make the classrooms child-friendly since that is the essence of the capitation grant," he said.

The Municipal Director appealed to the heads to see to it that the national literacy acceleration programme (NALAP) became beneficial to the municipality by ensuring that the books on the programme were effectively used in the classrooms.

"Let the teachers start using the NALAP books so that we can derive the benefits from them," he said, and charged the heads not to change the classes of those who participated in the training workshop. Mr Owusu-Boadi advised the heads to set good examples for their teachers to emulate by being regular and punctual to school themselves. On the best teacher award programme, the Municipal Director gave the assurance that his office and the Municipal Assembly had teamed up to mobilise support for the organisation of the programme and that winners for 2008 and 2009 would be awarded this year.

Mr Paul Raymond Kwofie, Chairman of COHBS praised the Municipal Director for his initiative and drive which, he said, had seen marked improvement in the work attitude of staff and teachers in the education directorate. 31 May 10