Global Education Week celebrated in Upper East

Bolgatanga, May 2, GNA - Mr Boniface Gambila, Upper East Regional Minister, on Friday called for the maximum and efficient use of educational resources in the Region to empower the people to improve their living standards.

He noted that the three Northern regions were fast losing their natural resources and that the only way to salvage the situation was to acquire knowledge that would help improve the environment, increase food production and provide the people with honest income earning alternatives.

Mr. Gambila was speaking at a forum in Bolgatanga organized by the Northern Network for Education Development (NNED) to wrap up a weeklong regional celebration of the Global Action Week on Education. The Week was celebrated under the theme: "Educate to end Poverty: Send my friend to school," which attracted teachers, school children and representatives from NGOs.

The Regional Minister urged teachers and parents to encourage continuing education to give more people, particularly those who missed out on formal education, another chance to acquire knowledge.

Mr. Gambila expressed concern about recent disputes over school lands in the Region and appealed to land owners to regard the plots of land they had released to schools as part of their contribution to the future development of their communities urging them to cooperate with the school authorities.

"Education to end poverty requires the commitment and sacrifice of all of us because we cannot fight poverty without some form of investment," he added.

Municipal and District Chief Executives in the Region said they had placed education first on their priority lists and that they were helping with the provision of school infrastructure as well as the sponsoring of brilliant but needy students to acquire higher education. District Directors of Education in their contribution, complained of the lack of textbooks and trained teachers and that while some schools were run by only one teacher, others had one teacher handling a class of over 90 pupils.

They further contended that many communities needed junior secondary schools as pupils had to walk long distances to attend school and that this situation often discouraged most pupils from continuing their education after completing primary school. NNED is an organization that seeks to promote education in the three Northern regions of Ghana, while the Global Action Week on Education is a week set aside in April each year by the Global Campaign for Education to focus on specific educational issues.