Assembly presents 1,200 Dual desks to basic schools in Agona East

Candidates of the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) who carried desks to the Examination Centres in the Agona East District before writing the exams can now breathe a sigh of relief.

This is because the Agona East District Assembly has presented 1,200 dual desks to be distributed to a number of basic schools in the District.

Mr Dennis Armah-Frempong, District Chief Executive who presented the desks said the Assembly procured them for deprived Primary and Junior High Schools (JHS) in the Area.

He said the situation needed to be averted this year, hence the Assembly’s commitment to a substantial percentage of its annual budget to upgrade educational infrastructural to ensure excellent performance.

He said when he took over the administration of Agona East, the Educational Directorate in the district placed 20 on the Central Regional education league table with 20 percent passes in 2016/2017.

The DCE said performance improved to 44 percent in 2017/2018 academic year on the league table due to effective mechanisms put in place.

Armah-Frempong expressed the hope that with the massive support given to the Education directorate this year, particularly the funding of mock examinations to prepare JHS candidates and motivation for teachers, the percentage of BECE passes for 2018/2019 was expected to hit over 70 percent.

He appealed to the heads of the beneficiary Basic schools to take good care of the desks and endeavour to repair them in case they got broken to prolong their life span.

Madam Vida Amoah-Mintah, District Director of Education for Agona East praised the Assembly for the efforts made to better the poor conditions of some basic schools in the District.

She said 57 of the 84 basic schools in the District were in distress and needed desks, rehabilitation of dilapidated structures and supply of teaching materials.

The Assembly should construct teachers’ quarters for schools in the remote areas to help save teachers from commuting long distances daily to and from school.