Education sector improves tremendously – President Mills

President John Evans Atta Mills on Thursday said the education sector is one of the key areas that had experienced tremendous improvement within the past three years.

He said: “Our achievements in managing inflation, budget deficit and realizing high Gross Domestic Product growth rates have reflected in the progress made in many key areas of national development.

“A snapshot of the education sector provides a good example of how far we have come within the short time span of three years,” he added.

President Mills made the observation when delivering the State of the Nation address to Parliament in Accra.

He cited Accra Metropolis as an example where efforts had been made to end the school shift system in basic schools, which had been a drawback in the fight for quality education.

President Mills said a number of classroom structures had been constructed during the three- year period, providing accommodation for hundreds of pupils who now benefited from full day classroom teaching.

He said more than 1,700 classroom blocks for schools under trees have been awarded for construction throughout the country.

“On completion, the 4,320 schools under trees that existed in 2009 would be reduced by about 40 per cent.

“We are on course to eliminate schools under trees phenomenon. We have distributed over three million school uniforms to needy pupils’ nationwide meaning that with a basic school population of about 5.2 million, we have supplied school uniforms to three out of every five children in basic schools,” he said.

On government’s free exercise books scheme, President Mills said more than 40 million exercise books had been supplied to all pupils in basic public schools.

“On the average, eight exercise books have been supplied to each pupil per year in both 2010 and 2011.

“In respect of the school feeding programme, we have rationalised the selection to target more needy communities. In all, coverage has been expanded,” he added.

President Mills said as regards the second cycle level of the educational strata, about 672 emergency classroom blocks and dormitories are in various phases of completion nationwide.

“Indeed, on my nationwide tour last year, I inaugurated many of such completed projects.

“In line with our social democratic principles, we aim at making secondary education accessible to every Ghanaian child of school going age by 2016.” He said completion of the emergency classroom blocks would make it possible to increase second cycle enrollment.

President Mills announced that government intends to establish additional community second cycle schools throughout the length and breadth of the country, particularly in under-served districts from 2013 to 2015.

“As far as this Administration is concerned, education is the key to giving the youth the skills they need to make most of their lives. Investing in the right education and addressing youth unemployment are two sides of the same coin.

“Thus, besides emphasising on formal classroom education, we are using the National Apprenticeship Programme, Local Enterprise and Skills Development Programme, and other programmes for the teaching of employable skills, he stressed.

President Mills said so far, those programmes had made great impact on youth employment in the informal sector of the economy and is expected that shift of the National Youth Employment Programme would focus from traditional paid modules to trade and vocation modules to encourage self-employment.

He said in pursuance to a pledge made last year, the School of Fisheries at Anomabo, a satellite college of University of Cape Coast, is underway and a head office building for the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences is under construction.