The Bolgatanga Municipal Assembly in the Upper East Region has announced that it would develop strategies to help address the challenges hindering education in the area.
Mr Philip Abore, the Municipal Chief Executive for the area, who told the GNA in an interview, said despite the various interventions by the Government such as good school infrastructure, the standard of education had not improved to appreciable standards.
“Each of the 37 electoral areas in the Municipality and its surroundings communities have well built schools and yet the standards keep on falling,” he said after a Town Hall meeting organised by the Assembly.
“As a teacher, I think we have to look beyond the infrastructure to enable us to dissect the problem and find a solution to it”.
Mr Abore said to help address the problem the Assembly would be holding a forum, involving all the stakeholders in education including traditional, religious and opinion leaders to come out with a common strategy to rectify the issue.
At present, he said, he had been visiting two schools each morning to identify their concerns to help rectify them with the Regional Educational Directorate of the Ghana Education Service.
Mr Abore said during one of such visits to a school, he was told there was no chalk even though the Assembly had provided funds for the procurement of such basic teaching materials.
He said the Assembly, with the Regional Coordinating Council and the Ghana Education Service, had provided some furniture to many of the schools in the Municipality to enhance teaching and learning.
The DCE said to make the school environment friendly and suitable for learning, the Assembly was ensuring that all school buildings had separate disability friendly toilet and urinal facilities for both boys and girls.
On the Town Hall meeting, the DCE said it was one of the effective tools for social accountability and the Assembly would continue to create the platform for citizens to participate effectively in the decision making process.
While the Budget Officer, Gbeduridana Mustapha B. Adams, took the participants through the performance of the Assembly’s Composite Budget, Alhaji Shaibu Mutawachilu, spoke on the Internally Generated Fund of the Assembly.
They took turns to inquire about the development projects of the Assembly.
Mr Noble Alagskomah, a member of the Social Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability group, commended the Assembly for organising the meeting and asked for more of such programmes.
Participants at the event included members of Civil Society Organisations, Traditional, and Religious groups, opinion leaders, Persons with Disabilities (PWDs) and the Media.
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