Garu-Tempane District commissions five projects

Garu (U/E), Feb. 8, GNA - Five facilities to enhance education and health delivery in the Garu-Tempane District in the Upper East Region have been commissioned by Mr Emmanuel Syn-net Asigri, the District Chief Executive (DCE).

The projects included a 350-million-cedi three classroom block for early childhood education with an office and kitchen and a 328-million-cedi three classroom unit block for the Presbyterian Junior Secondary School all at Garu.


Two 196-million-cedi two bedroom nurses' quarters each at Denugu and Kpikpira and a 234-million-cedi two unit semi-detached quarters at Worikambo.


Both the early childhood block and the semi-detached quarters were financed with funds from the District Wide Assistance Project (DWAP), a Canadian government-sponsored programme, whilst funding for the others were done with HIPC benefits.


In addition, exercise books worth 210 million cedis were also presented to pupils in all the basic schools. Over 26,000 pupils were to get two each of the books.


Six colour Television sets were given to the Tempane Secondary School and five selected junior secondary schools to compliment their studies with PSI on Distance Learning.

Commissioning these projects, the Mr Asigri reaffirmed government's determination to speed up development process that would open up the rural areas in order to improve their living standards. He said the projects were meant to improve human resource development and the provision of decent accommodation to health personnel to be attracted and be retained in rural communities. Mr Asigri said these would ultimately reduce illiteracy, which breeds poverty thereby, propelling the area to be developed for life to be meaningful to all.


The DCE noted that though the new Assembly was beset with a lot of challenges, it would do all that it could, to improve working conditions of personnel and called on all to exercise patience to meet their demands.


The District Director of Education, Mr Eugene Z. N. Domah disclosed that with the introduction of capitation grant, pre-school enrolment increased from 2,497 to 3,318, whilst primary enrolment rose to 19,908 from 17,342.


Mr Domah said without adequate classrooms to absorb this increasing number of school children, the aim of the FCUBE programme could not be achieved.


He said the teacher-pupil ratio was not the best and called on all stakeholders to support the directorate in addressing the issue to raise the standard of education in the area.