Assembly lifts ban on Teacher Award celebration

The Akatsi North District Assembly on Tuesday lifted the ban on the celebration of the Best Teacher Award in the District. This followed unconfirmed reports that the district performed well in this year's Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

Mr James Gunu, the Akatsi North District Chief Executive, imposed the ban last year to challenge teachers to increase output at the basic school level especially, to justify its restoration.

"Our abysmal performance of only 65 pupils passing out of 375 in the 2013 BECE prompted the ban but now, we have something to celebrate," he stated at an education forum at Ave-Dakpa at the instance of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.

Mr Gunu said the Assembly did not regret the ban because it yielded positive results and individual school results showed that the District performed very well with a school, which recorded zero per cent in 2013, recording 100 per cent this year.

Mr Gunu commended the District Education Directorate and other stakeholders for the feat and reiterated the commitment of the Assembly to education.

He said the late release of District Assembly Common Fund was affecting support to health and education in the District and appealed to the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education to ensure prompt release of the fund.

Mrs Catherine Nutsugah-Mikado, the Akatsi North District Director of Education, said the Directorate was expecting an "overwhelming glorious" BECE result and was grateful to the Assembly for the lifting of the ban.

She said she was confident of a better result in the 2014 BECE, because her outfit had stepped up monitoring and supervision and enhanced the awareness of parents on the importance of education.

Mr Peter Nortsu-Kortoe, Member of Parliament for Akatsi-North, presented 500 lesson notebooks, 500 class registers and 1000 flat files to the District Education Directorate with the prompting that education delivery must not be left to government alone.

Mr. Puozaa Mathias Asoma, Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education, said the forum was part of the Committee’s duty to ensure quality teaching and learning.

He said the Committee was interested in the availability of textbooks in schools, issues of overcrowding, sanitation facilities and infrastructure.