Bolgatanga, Feb. 20, GNA – The Upper East Region held its 2004 best teacher awards at the weekend, with seven categories listed for honours. The categories were second cycle science and mathematics, senior secondary school, vocational, technical and primary. The rest were junior secondary, basic school science and mathematics and non-teaching staff.
The first to third persons from each of the categories took home a double-decker refrigerator, a twenty-one inch colour television set and a four-burner gas cooker.
In his welcome address, the Upper East Regional Director of Education, Mr Ken Dabuo, commended the award winners for their hard work.
He noted that with the introduction of the capitation grant, enrolment in schools in the Region had increased tremendously, bringing more pressure on educational infrastructure.
Mr Dabuo appealed to the government to provide more schools, furniture, teaching and learning materials and more teachers to enable the concept to run smoothly.
Responding, the Deputy Upper East Regional Minister, Alhaji Awudu Yiremeah, announced that the Regional Co-ordinating Council (RCC) had asked all district assemblies in the Region to factor in the provision of more educational infrastructure in their developmental budgets to meet the demands created by of the capitation grant. He said government realised that teachers had a crucial role to play in the national development agenda and that was why government had put in place mechanisms to boost their morale, citing the introduction of vehicle and housing loans, upgrading of teacher training colleges to diploma awarding institution as examples. The Deputy Regional Minister advised teachers to stick to the laid down guidelines in the disbursement of the capitation grant to avoid being caught by the law.
He further impressed upon traditional rulers to ensure that with the introduction of the capitation grant all children of school-going age were sent to school to ensure the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal.
In his address, the Bolgatanga Municipal Chief Executive, Mr Isaac Nsoh Amoah, announced that the Assembly spends a large chunk of its yearly budget on the provision of educational infrastructure, citing the construction of schools, provision of furniture and the sponsoring of training programmes for teachers among others.
Source: GhanaWeb
