VALCO Fund presents teaching equipment to schools

Koforidua, April 27, GNA - The Management Trustees of the Valco Trust Fund has presented various teaching equipment worth 215 million cedis to 12 second-cycle institutions in the Eastern Region at a ceremony at Koforidua on Tuesday.

The Eastern Regional representative on the Fund, Mr Samuel S. Omane, a former Inspector General of Police (IGP), presented the items to the Deputy Eastern Regional Minister, Mr. Gustav Narh Dometey, who received them on behalf of the institutions.

The items included computers, science, technical and home science equipment.

The home science equipment, including gas cookers, deep freezers and sewing machines costing 30 million cedis, went to the Mangoase and Mampong Presbyterian Secondary Schools.

The science and technical equipment went to the Akroso Secondary, Akoase St Michael Secondary, Adjena Secondary Technical, Akro Secondary Technical, Klo Agogo Secondary, Kibi Secondary Technical Schools. The rest included the Osino Presbyterian Secondary Technical, Kade Secondary Technical, St Paul Technical Institute, Kukurantumi and Abetifi Vocational Training Centre.

Mr Omane stressed the need for the beneficiary institutions to put in place a good maintenance programme for the equipment for a lasting life-span.

In response, Mr Dometey, recalled that a few months ago the Fund donated a bus to the Kibi Unit School for the Blind and said the donation had come at the right time when the youth were being encouraged to go into technical and vocational disciplines.

He, therefore, advised students of the beneficiary institutions to take advantage of the equipment to put them into good use but cautioned that acts of indiscipline resulting in rampage and destruction of school property would not be tolerated.

The Deputy Eastern Regional Director of Education, Mr Seth Nii Teiko Quaye, who received the equipment on behalf of the institutions, pointed out that the beneficiary schools were among the emerging community schools which were less endowed in various ways and said the donation would help raise up their educational delivery.

He said the donation had come at the time the government was upgrading selected secondary schools in the districts into model schools and appealed to other non-governmental organisations, individuals and churches to contribute to the success of the government's policy of providing quality education to all children. April 27, 04