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Parliament yesterday approved an amount of GH�4,412,695,383 budget estimate allocated to the Ministry of Education for their services for the year ending, 31st December, 2013. The Ministry of Education is one of the ministries that have witnessed an increment in the 2013 budget estimates, although it did not get the exact amount of what it actually requested for. The motion, which was captured as item 5 on the Order Paper of the House was moved by the sector minister, Mrs. Naana Jane Opoku Agyeman on the floor of the House last Friday. The increment in the allocation, according to the report submitted by the Select Committee on Education Chaired by Mr. Mathias Asoma Puozaa was as a result of programmes undertaken by the ministry which amounted to an excess spending in 2012. The report noted that the ministry of education was allocated GH�2,534,056,450.00 in the previous year but spent an amount of GH�5,119,034,227.00 � hence an excess spending of GH�2,584,977,777.00. The breakdown of the excess spending includes payment of capitation grant to all public schools for second and third terms, free school uniforms to 1,600,000 pupils in deprived communities, 28.4million free exercise books to basic schools and 53,555 laptop computers to over 2,000 basic schools. The rest were trained 5,000 JHS graduates under the National Apprenticeship Programme, University of Health and Allied Sciences and the University of Energy and Natural Resources in Ho and Sunyani respectively � 53,555 laptop computers to over 2,000 basic schools. Contributing to the motion was the Member of Parliament (MP) Weija/Ggawe, Hon. Rosemund Comfort Abrah who said �education is the key to national development�, hence better policies should be structured out to ensure Ghanaians enjoy quality education. She argued that though the ministry has seen an increment in its budget, there was no policies that seeks to improve upon the system of education especially in terms of teachers empowerment. Hon. Abrah used the opportunity to appeal to the ministry of education to provide incentives to teachers which she said would improve upon their quality of teaching and attract more learned people to becoming teachers. �Mr. Speaker, if more incentives are given to teachers, it will attract post National Service Secretariat (NSS) personnel, teachers and retired lectures to the teaching profession, which will boost the quality of education in the country,� she noted.