Government will strengthen basic education - President Mahama

President John Dramani Mahama on Tuesday reiterated government’s commitment to strengthen the basic education level to make it attractive and accessible to all children of school going age in the country.

He said the current trend where 93 percent of children were enrolled at the basic levels with less than 20 percent of them completing tertiary education was unacceptable and retrogressive to the country’s growth and development.

President Mahama, who announced this while participating in the fourth Institute of Economic Affairs Presidential debate in Tamale, said government was currently concerned with the elimination of schools under trees as one of the major issues to strengthen the basic levels.

He said government was also working towards the elimination of high fees by standardizing them throughout the country to make it affordable all students irrespective of their geographical location and social status.

The President said government was also re-targeting the use of the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETfund) to ensure that more deprived schools benefited from the fund to improve on their facilities throughout the country.

President Mahama said government would also increase budgetary allocation to the education sector to make it attractive, accessible and affordable throughout the country.

He said government would also increase facilities at the Vocational, Technical, secondary and tertiary institutions to achieve the NDC vision of investing in the people to raise the human resource level and provide quality education throughout the country.

On energy production, President Mahama said government had invigorated the Ghana Gas Company, which was mandated to produce supply and export gas for both domestic use and for export to neighbouring countries.

He said government had also embarked on the changing and increment in the provision of transformers, building of more sub-stations, and gave the assurance that load shedding would become the thing of the past by the end of 2013.

President Mahama said energy was targeted as the driver of growth and development of the economy and government would continue to invest in it to hit the target of 5,000 megawatts of energy by the close of 2015.

He said under the energy for all concept in the NDC manifesto, all communities that had 500 persons and beyond would be provided with electricity to undertake economic ventures and for domestic purposes.

On debt management, the President said although government was within the international debt management standards, steps would be made to make judicious use of all loans to invest in economic ventures that could create new growth poles throughout the country.

President Mahama said government would also prioritize access, affordability and develop human resource in the health sector to reduce the incidence of diseases and promote a healthy nation.