Education standards in Volta Region falling – Director
A school block complex for the Lume-Atsyame RC Primary in the Ho Municipal Area was inaugurated on Wednesday with a call on education stakeholders in the Volta Region to redouble efforts to halt dwindling standards in the region.
Mr Emmanuel Ketteku, the Volta Regional Director of Education in a speech read for him, said the recently released Basic Certificate of Examination (BECE) result represented the freshest compelling evidence of the lowering standards in the Region, which once glorified itself as a cradle of human resource in Ghana.
He said region’s 27 percent as against the national performance rate of 67 percent was “disheartening.”
The GH¢206,000.00 six-classroom unit, built with funds provided by Manos Unidas, a Spanish Charity, on the bidding of the Ho Diocese of the Catholic Church, has an office, library, staff common room, computer laboratory, all fully furnished and a detached six-unit water closet facility.
Mr Ketteku said besides government, the Catholic Church was the next in line in the provision of educational infrastructure in the country.
Most Rev Francis Anani Lodonu, Catholic Bishop of Ho who dedicated the facility, said it was “unrealistic these days to expect the central government or someone else to come and provide for us the things we need for our survival”.
He commended government for providing 20 computers and accessories for the school.
Bishop Lodonu urged parents to take the education of their children seriously, taking a swipe at men especially, for shirking their parental responsibilities.
He lauded the community for being peaceable without any serious chieftaincy disputes and for giving the contractor maximum support during the construction of the block.
Bishop Lodonu told the teachers “classrooms cannot study for pupils and pass examinations for them. We pray that teachers will love their pupils and sacrifice themselves for them”.
He said the Catholic Church in the past 12 years had put up 60 e educational infrastructures across the country with the support of its partners.
Mr Kwaku Atta Nana Dagadu, the Headteacher, said the building was a big relief for the 150 pupils and their teachers as the old swish structure had cracked at many places.
Mr Joseph Nii Laryea Afotey-Agbo, the Volta Regional Minister, agreed with the chiefs that roads leading to the community were very bad and promised he would prevail on the Department of Feeder Roads to provide the road maintenance and construction schedules in that part of the region for his perusal.
Source: GNA