Mr. Ebo Barton Oduro,Deputy Attorney General and Deputty Minister of Justice, on Saturday said the government would realize the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) through the provision of quality education in the country.
He said it is in line with this objective that the Government was providing facilities such as classroom blocks, mono desk, dormitory blocks, ICT centres, science laboratories and many other infrastructure as well as organizing special training sessions for teachers to upgrade their teaching skills.
Mr Oduro, who is also the Member of Parliament for Cape Coast, said this at the 21st anniversary and 3rd speech and prizing giving day of the Oguaa Senior High Technical School (Ostech) at Ekon near Cape Coast, under the theme, “Infrastructural Development - a Vital Key to Academic Excellence”.
He underscored the important role infrastructure play in the development of education, stressing that the need to tackle infrastructural development head-on has become an issue of paramount importance not only to support classroom accommodation, but for other areas such as staff bungalows, laboratories, dormitories, halls of residence, lecture theatres for teachers, workers and beneficiaries of the system across board within Ghana’s educational terrain in general.
Mr Oduro said the government, stakeholders and policy makers were concerned about the relationship between school facilities and students learning and achievement, not only because of health, security, and psychological issues, but also because the failure to create and maintain optimum learning environment could undermine other efforts to reform education in the country.
He said it was the vision of the government to use quality education delivery to accelerate the nation’s socio-economic development through expanding access to education at all levels, raising quality of teaching and learning, making education more relevant to national goals and aspiration, as well as making tertiary education more cost effective
He stressed that for the youth to meet the challenges of the global world, it was imperative for them to take their studies seriously; adding that the world economy was knowledge driven and that it was important to acquire the necessary skills in the areas of mathematics, sciences and technology.
Mrs Ama Benyiwa-Doe, Central Regional Minister, in a speech read for her, said the government underscores the important role education played in the socio-economic development of the country and would therefore endeavour to give the sector the needed support.
She urged the students to reciprocate governments' efforts by taking their studies seriously and endeavour to eschew vices such as drug abuse, cybercrime and violent acts before during and after the December polls.
Mrs Anastasia Thomford Okyere, headmistress of the school,commended the government and GETFUND for providing the school with a number of infrastructural projects including the construction of 12 and six unit classroom blocks, two dormitory blocks; stressing that, in the more than 17 years existence of the school, it has not seen such massive infrastructural development.
Mrs Okyere said the school had chalked a lot of successes over the years and that it recorded 100 per cent pass in this year’s WASSCE as against 53 per cent in 2008 stressing that out of a total 209 students who registered for the WASSCE, 105 passed in eight subjects , with the overall best candidate scoring aggregate 11.
She said although the school had chalked some successes, it was still saddled with a lot of problems including the lack of a well-resourced ICT,science laboratory, a modern library, assembly and dinning halls, accommodation for teachers and an administration block .
She in this regard called on the government and other stakeholders to come to the aid of the school particularly in the building of bungalows for staff since most of them lived far away from the school, thereby making teaching and learning difficult.**
