ISODEC commends government on free School uniform

Bolgatanga, March 16, GNA - The Integrated Social Development Centre (ISODEC), a civil society organization, has commended the government on its intention to provide school uniforms to deprived communities and to increase the capitation grant in basic schools. Mr. Jonathan Adabre, Upper East Regional Manger of ISODEC, told the school enrolment, thereby enhancing the human resource development. Mr Adabre said for the past five years, ISODEC had been implementing a similar programme in some districts in the Upper East Region and Walewale in the Northern Region.

Under the ISODEC programme school uniforms, exercise and textbooks, school bags, bicycles and a bag of corn is given to each child every academic year through the Ambassador Girls Scholarships funded by United State Agency for International Development (USAID).

Mr. Adabre suggested that a suitable structure and method must be instituted in distributing the package to reach those it would be intended for.

He said under the ISODEC programme chiefs, assemblymen, school authorities, opinion leaders in communities are constituted to identify and select the most deprived children to benefit from the package. Mr. Adabre suggested to the government to adopt the ISODEC criteria by involving chiefs, opinion leaders, assembly members, and School authorities in identifying and distributing the government package. He said so far ISODEC, through the America Girls Scholarship Programme, had been able to sponsor over 1,000 students since its inception five years ago.

He appealed to the government to extend its package to students who might complete basic schools but could not go further due to other reasons and provide them with capital to enable them to establish themselves in businesses.