The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education and Member of Parliament for Jaman North in the Brong Ahafo Region, Siaka Stevens, has commended the Government for fulfilling its major campaign promise by implementing the Free Senior High School education programme.
He said programme is aimed at upgrading and increasing intake in schools through the Computerized Selection System, and charged parents to take advantage of the policy to educate their children for national development.
[contextly_sidebar id=”dg4Mtipyx0iq24Hpzb4Ea2tWfKReWexU”]“The policy is to raise and upgrade our schools, people were not selecting the schools in my constituency with the previous Computer Selection Programme, but with this system in place, the schools are all filled up. It means the rural schools are being upgraded by this system and this enhances national cohesion”, he stated.
Stevens said this to Citi News on the sidelines of the First Ordinary Meeting of the Jaman North District Assembly at Sampa on Wednesday.
He opined that the policy has encouraged enrollment in public schools, and observed that in the past, Sumaman SHS, Nafana SHS, Diamono SHS and Goka Secondary/Techinical, all in the Jaman North District, recorded less than 100 admissions, but can boost of over 700 students this year.
He noted that the committee was mandated to monitor and supervise the activities of all implementing agencies to ensure the success of the programme in an efficient and effective manner.
He disclosed that the committee will soon embark on a fact-finding mission in some selected schools in the country, to assess the success and challenges confronting the implementation of the Free SHS policy to enable corrective measures to be taken for its success.
On infrastructure for the schools, he observed that government was aware of the challenges, and was therefore putting in the necessary measures to address the accommodation challenges confronting the free education system.
“Government knew the challenges ahead, and that is why the schools were reopened earlier. If you study the reopening calendar for schools, formally schools use to reopen late November or December, and after that, they go on vocation but this time, the first time in our history, we started school second week of September to enable us unearth the challenges and problems. So that we use this period to enable us foresee and solve them before the commencement of the next term”, he emphasized.
The Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education disclosed that government was currently conducting social auditing on all GETFUND projects and other educational infrastructure for urgent action as part of government’s commitment to address the accommodation gap to enable students have the opportunity to enroll in school.
The MP, earlier in an address to the assembly, appealed to the house to unite and collaborate to ensure government initiatives for the development of the area are executed successfully, especially the cashew factory under the One District, One Factory initiative, as a cashew producing area.
He appealed to development partners to come to the aid of the assembly with resources and logistics to enhance the pace of development, and commended chiefs and opinion leaders for their role in development.
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By: Mashoud Kombat/citifmonline.com/Ghana