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DR Edward N. Gyader, a Council of State Member from the Upper West Region, has urged the people in the northern part of Ghana to acknowledge the establishment of the University for Development Studies (UDS) as a milestone in their development path. He said higher education strengthened core values relating to responsible citizenship and core for oneself and family, as well as contributing to better health and governance, sustaining the environment, and reducing poverty, inequality and crime. Dr Gyader, who was the guest of honour at the annual general meeting of the Sissala Union meeting held in Tumu, said development strategies often focused on those core values, and higher education had a critical role to play in achieving them. The Council of State Member, who gave an overview of education from the colonial era to date in respect of �Bridging the Gap between the South and the North of Ghana in Development�, said the process must be pursued to its logical conclusion. He noted that even though it was the right of the people to have higher educational facilities, they must acknowledge not only the basic educational facilities that had been provided but also �this last effort of Flt. Lt. Jerry John Rawlings and the Provisional National Defence Council (PNDC) government in establishing the UDS in the north�. Mr Johnson Sabor, a retired educationist who spoke on �Falling Standards of Education in the Sissala Area�, bemoaned the sustained abuse of the labour of school children by some executive members of Parent/Teacher Associations, School Management Committees and some opinion leaders on their farms. He said: �Many at times some of these people come to the schools and solicit for help from school authorities who allow the children to be engaged in picking cotton and maize from the stocks and harvesting groundnuts belonging to these executives with impunity�. The practice, among others, impacted negatively on the performance of both teachers and students, resulting in the poor performance at the Basic Education Certificate Examination level and should be discouraged. Dr Roger Kanton, President of the Sissala Union, said the union was advocating the use of Sissali language as an examinable subject at the West Africa Examination Council at the BECE. He said at present, students at the junior high schools were studying Dagaare language at the basic education level but without language teachers in the subject area, resulting in their mass failure at the BECE. Dr Kanton said the union had put premium on education, agriculture and human security and was working round the clock to achieve its objectives. He said last year the union organised classes in Science, Mathematics, English language, Social Studies, and Religious and Moral Education for 400 senior high students free of charge. It also supplied improved maize and onion seeds to farmers in the area to help increase food and cash crop production. On human security, Dr Kanton said the union was working with traditional rulers and other stakeholders in the communities to mediate on all disputes for amicable settlement to enhance peaceful co-existence and development.