Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Govt increases premix supply

Back Page
August 18, 2009

THE government has directed a further increase in the distribution of premix fuel from 50 tankers per week to 80 tankers per week.
The move is to meet the demands of fishermen for the current bumper season. Each vehicle carries 13,500 litres of fuel, and it is expected that with the increase, more fishermen would have access to the commodity.
The Public Relations Officer of the Ministry of Energy, Mr Michael Akwasi Sarpong, who made this known to the Daily Graphic, said the new blue premix fuel, announced by the government, was due to be out yesterday Monday, August 17, 2009.
He said although the distribution of the new fuel was to begin last Monday, August 10, 2009, that could not be possible because of a little hitch with the suppliers.
He said effective August 24, 2009, tankers without the inscription ‘premix’ would not be allowed to load premix fuel from the Tema Oil Refinery (TOR).
Mr Sarpong said the branding of the vehicles was expected to take two weeks and that each of the 121 landing beaches was to determine which Oil Marketing Company or tanker to do business with.
As part of the new measures to eliminate the diversion of premix fuel for other purposes, he said, manual checks, one of the new measures announced, was ongoing and that the checks started from TOR to the vehicle’s final destination.
The government last week introduced new measures to check diversion and smuggling of premix fuel.
The measures, which were to take effect from Monday, August 10, 2009, involve the colouring of premix fuel blue; branding vehicles that transport the product with the inscription ‘Premix Fuel’ for easy identification; electronic tracking of vehicles that transport the product and on-the-spot inspection.
Meanwhile, fishermen have welcomed the introduction of the new measures, saying they would go a long way to eliminate the abuse of the product.
They said the period of shortage of the product created problems for them.
The Executive Secretary of the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council, Nii Abeo Kyerekuanda IV, told the Daily Graphic last week that the regular supply of premix was critical to the operation of fishermen.
He expressed the hope that there would be constant supply of the commodity for them to benefit fully from the bumper season, since it will take another year for this opportunity to present itself again.

Maths camp begins August 16

August 12, 2009

THIS year’s Mathematics Camp for basic and second cycle school students will be held from August 16 to September 12, 2009.
The residential camp, which is organised by Megasa Mathematics Academic at Lashibi, a Ghana Education Service recognised academy, involves an intensive morning, afternoon and evening sessions.
The event, which would be facilitated by Prof. S.E. Anku and his team, would cover mathematics concepts, practical activities and problem solving.
“Mathematics seems to be very difficult and traumatising for many students, but that should not be the case,” Prof. Anku told the Daily Graphic, and expressed concern about the 135,000 students who failed in mathematics last year.
He said the students shouldn’t have failed because mathematics was very easy, and that the Megasa Mathematics Academy wanted to expose students in the country to how easy the subject area was to avoid such failures.
He indicated that the yearly mathematics camps were to enable students to experience practical mathematics where the subject was made relevant to real life.
Prof. Anku said it was mathematics or education in general that ensured the efficiency of science, engineering and technology, and that countries such as Singapore and Malaysia began with the fixing of their education.
“When we give quality education, we can develop our economy and take care of health,” he said, and expressed concern about lip-service paid to education.
He believed that after the 14-day camp, the perception of students about mathematics would change.

Pupils to get free exercise books before December

Page 11
August 19, 2009


THE Ministry of Education says the free exercise books for 5 million schoolchildren will be distributed before the end of the first term of the 2009-2010 academic year.
It said everything would be done to ensure that pupils got the exercise books for academic activities.
“The free exercise books would be ready before the end of the first term of this academic year,” the Head of Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Education, Mr Paul Krampah, told the Daily Graphic.
Throwing more light on the free uniform policy, he said there would be no separate uniforms for pupils of public-mission schools in deprived communities under the free uniform policy.
It said the prescribed school uniform worn by public basic school pupils was what would be distributed to the beneficiary schools.
“All the beneficiary schools, whether mission or not, would get the brown uniform. It is the prescribed uniform majority of the schools use,” he said.
According to him, the ministry or the government for that matter could not provide different uniforms, and that was what was being done to provide the ‘acceptable uniform’. Mission schools spread across the length and breadth of the country have separate uniforms from the government schools.
But Mr Krampah said the prescribed uniform would be distributed before the end of the term.
One million basic school pupils from deprived communities are to also to enjoy the free school uniforms. The uniforms are to be ready for distribution from September, when the 2009/2010 academic year begins.
The provision of the free uniforms was contained in the 2009 Budget Statement delivered by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Dufuor.
The initiative is to benefit pupils from deprived communities, as part of efforts to relieve their parents of a burden and encourage attendance in school.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, had said the government, apart from increasing access to school, was committed to the provision of infrastructure, motivation for teachers and improvement of the sector.

Megasa Maths Camp Opens

August 18

A TWO-week Mathematics Camp for junior and senior high school students has opened in Accra with a call on the education authorities to pay greater attention to the study and teaching of Mathematics.
The Founder and Executive Director of Megasa Mathematics Academy, Prof. S.E. Anku, who made the call, said placing emphasis on the study of mathematics would transform the country for the better.
The residential camp, which is organised by Megasa Mathematics Academic at Lashibi, a Ghana Education Service recognised academy, involves an intensive morning, afternoon and evening sessions. Participants would be presented with certificates at the end of the event.
It would cover mathematics concepts, practical activities and problem solving.
Prof. Anku said mathematics was the study of everyday life activities, and that from history, mathematical ideals were developed from the things people did, among other things.
He said in spite of the importance of mathematics to the development of a country, little attention was paid to the subject, thus the large number of students who failed every year.
"The situation in Ghana is bad as we are not paying serious attention to the study of mathematics. All other developed countries pay adequate attention to mathematics," he said.
According to him, mathematics ensured the efficiency of science, engineering and the technology that was needed for national development.
Prof. Anku said the unfortunate aspect of the study of mathematics in Ghana was that people only looked at it as an examination subject, saying that there was the need for students, among other personalities, to learn how to apply it.
He called on teachers to upgrade their knowledge and methodology of teaching mathematics, and urged the government to motivate teachers to enable them to offer their best.
Prof. Anku said companies and institutions must also provide the platform for students to undertake practical attachments so as to experience the practical aspects of mathematics.
"If we have a well-educated human resource everything would take care of itself," he said.

Right to Know Education Project takes off

Page 11
August 17, 2009

THE Right to Know, Right to Education Project, a child's right initiative to ensure that children obtain quality basic education and acquire the means to lift themselves and their communities out of poverty is being implemented in the country.
The five-year project is being operated in seven African countries and aims at establishing a continental standard on the right to quality basic education, right to access to information established in legal framework, and empower care-givers to participate meaningfully in their children's education.
The project is a partnership between Idasa, South Africa and the seven African countries. The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) is partnering Idasa to implement the project in Ghana.
It aims at creating an enabling space for people in seven key, low income African societies to claim their “right to know” by promoting the child’s right to quality basic education through access to information and participatory, rights-based budget process.
"This strategic intervention will enhance responsive and accountable governance, enabling poor children to claim their right to quality basic education, resulting in better skilled, economically active citizens who are better able to lift themselves out of poverty. By promoting the Right to Know, the proposed programme will help deliver quality basic education, thus alleviating poverty in Africa," it said.
In Ghana the project will be implemented at two levels; national and local level. National level strategies and activities will target policy makers and other stakeholders including CSOs with a major focus on advocacy for a legal framework on the right to access to information and the establishment of a transparent and participatory budget processes.
The focus at the local level will be pro-poor parents and their effective participation in school governance. School Management Committees/Parent Teacher Associations (SMC/PTA’s) are the local representatives of parents in Ghana; they will be the focus of Ghana’s parental participation in school governance.
Thirty communities from the Western, Central and Greater Accra Regions would be selected as project communities where the project would be implemented at the local level. Ten communities would be selected in each region.
The criteria for selection included pro-poor communities that have low income levels with a more than 70 per cent of population earning less than a dollar a day. The communities should preferably be in farming/fishing/coastal and forest/cocoa growing areas respectively.
There should also be the presence of at least one public basic school and a PTA in the community, among other things.

Programme to upgrade teachers begins

Page 11
August 14, 2009

THREE thousand Certificate 'A' teachers in the country are undertaking a two-year Sandwich programme to upgrade themselves to diploma status.
The upgrading is part of efforts by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to upgrade the about 49,000 Certificate 'A' teachers to diploma status.
The Head of the Teacher Education Division of the GES, Mr Victor Mantey, who made this known to the Daily Graphic, said the teachers were the second batch of Certificate 'A' teachers to take part in the programme.
He said the upgrading programme, which was expected to end on September 13, was being held at the Tamale, St Louis, Bechem, St Jospeh, St Francis, Ola and the Presbyterian Colleges of Education.
He said the first batch of 11,000 teachers who started the programme two years ago had completed, and that the GES was expecting the same number of teachers to register.
Mr Mantey said other competing programmes might have led to the drop in the number of teachers that registered for the programme.
On the issue of teacher trainees who would be entering colleges of education this year, he said 9,000 students had been admitted for the 2009-2010 academic year.
He said the 9,000 figure had to be maintained because of the financial implications in terms of payment of allowances in increasing the number.
Mr Mantey said an exercise carried out by the Teacher Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has revealed that there were 6,000 untrained teachers in 70 of the 170 districts of the country.
The exercise was carried out to know whether there were still untrained teachers in the system following the introduction of the Untrained Teacher Training in Basic Education (UTTBE) programme in 2004.
The UTTBE programme was introduced when it was identified during a census that there were 24,000 untrained teachers in the system.
The programme was to train those who were untrained thereby leading to the award of diploma after their four-year training period.

Errors in Computerised Placement System eliminated

Page 11
August 8, 2009


ERRORS that are associated with the smooth placement of qualified Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) into senior high schools under the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) have been eliminated.
The errors which were made by candidates during registration have resulted in male students being sent to female schools and vice versa, selection of wrong codes leading to students being sent to schools they did not intend choosing, assigning candidates wrong programmes, among other things.
For instance, after the second round of placements in 2007, about 17,000 candidates were unplaced as a result of errors in selecting their programmes, school codes and sexes.
“The errors brought about huge costs on the Ghana Education Service (GES) as we had to spend time and money to correct them. I am, however, happy that this is over,” the Co-ordinator of the CSSPS, Mr Andrew Akuoko, told the Daily Graphic in an interview in Accra.
He said the errors were eliminated following a collaboration between the GES and the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) to introduce the computer registration (Batch Registration) which ensure that the data or information provided by candidates were accurate.
Under the Batch Registration, he said “the computer would, for instance, reject a male candidate who mistakenly chose a girls’ school”, adding that the computer would also reject the entry of a candidate who chose a programme that was not offered as well as reject the entry of a candidate who chose the wrong code for a school they wanted.
Mr Akuoko said the issues outlined were some of the problems that affected the smooth operation of the placement exercise under the CCSPS.
With the problem of the errors addressed, he said the next challenge was candidates accepting senior high schools they (candidates) themselves chose and were placed in.
“We have put in place all the necessary measures to ensure that the placement exercise is smooth this year,” he said, and urged all to accept the schools they chose and were placed in.
Mr Akuoko said every senior high school had a potential, and that the issue of performance rested on the students themselves and not on the schools they attended.
He said candidates should make the best use of facilities in the schools they had been sent to and not depend on what their peers would tell them, saying that “they must focus on their education since placement is done on merit”.
He said the new system introduced, under which schools were categorised, would ease the pressure on the few schools everybody was chasing.
The GES last year instituted measures to address bottlenecks associated with the CSSPS to make it more efficient and reliable.
Among the measures is the categorisation of senior high schools into seven groups to make selection easy and ease pressure on the so-called "endowed schools" and the increase in the number of schools chosen by students from three to six to enhance their chances of placement.
During the first placement exercise in 2005, 151,016 out of a total 177,070 qualified candidates were placed in senior high and technical schools. Four thousand candidates deferred their placements.
In 2006, 308,379 BECE candidates registered with 160,119 qualifying for placement. A total of 145,961 candidates were placed and 3,031 deferred their placement.
More than 188,881 candidates were placed in 2007, while about 179,000 were placed in last year.
The CSSPS was introduced in 2005 to replace manual selection process which was said to be cumbersome. There were also allegations of corruption and favouritism under that system. The CSSPS aims at promoting efficiency, transparency, fairness, equity, speed, among other things, in the selection process.
Meanwhile, barring any unforeseen circumstances, this year’s BECE results would be released this week, sources at WAEC have hinted.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

70 Districts have 6,000 untrained teachers

Back page
June 3, 2009


AN exercise carried out by the Teacher Education Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has revealed that there are 6,000 untrained teachers in 70 of the 170 districts of the country.
The figure is likely to increase when the remaining 100 districts submit the names and schools of untrained teachers by the end of this month.
The Director of the division, Mr Victor Mantey, told the Daily Graphic that the exercise was carried out to know whether there were still untrained teachers in the system following the introduction of the Untrained Teacher Training in Basic Education (UTTBE) programme in 2004.
The UTTBE programme was introduced when it was identified during a census that there were 24,000 untrained teachers in the system.
The programme was to train those who were untrained thereby leading to the award of diploma after their four-year training period.
The first and second phases of the UTTBE programme are expected to end this year while the third phase is expected to end in 2010 with a fourth phase ending in 2011.
The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) recently expressed worry about the large number of untrained teachers at the primary educational level and called for immediate action to reverse the trend.
According to the association, about 41 per cent of primary school teachers of the Ghana Education Service (GES) were untrained.
Mr Mantey explained that his outfit was considering the feasibility of organising another training programme for those that had been identified in the exercise.
He said as part of efforts to improve teacher quality, the GES introduced the top up programme for about 60,000 Certificate ‘A’ teachers to upgrade themselves for the award of diploma.
Mr Mantey said the first batch of 11,000 Certificate ‘A’ teachers that undertook the programme would pass out this month after their two-year period of studies and the second batch of 11,000 Certificate ‘A’ teachers would start the programme next month.
He said all the Certificate ‘A’ teachers were supposed to be upgraded to diploma status by 2012 or have themselves to blame.
Asked why the colleges of education were not allowed to increase intake in spite of the capacity of some of them to take in more students, he said there was a quota to admit 9,000 teacher trainees yearly and that they could not take more because of monetary constraints.

Don't joke with our education

Frobt page
June 4, 2009

A HIGH Court judge, Mr Justice Saeed Kwaku Gyan, has underscored the need for the country to develop a national education policy that will be agreed upon by all Ghanaians and systematically implemented over a period of 20 or 30 years.
According to him, education was too serious a subject “to be allowed as a political football onto a soggy and slippery field to be mauled by feuding and contending political parties or as a lamb sacrificed on the altar of expediency”.
“The hullabaloo over educational reforms in this country over the past several decades is definitely worrying. I dare say that for educational policies and their implementation to achieve positive outcomes, they must never become the subject of partisan political brinkmanship and posturing,” he said.
Mr Gyan made the suggestion at the 40th Speech and Prize-giving Day of the Fomena T.I. Ahmadiyya Senior High School at Fomena near Obuasi in the Ashanti Region.
The High Court judge noted that any country that trifled with the policy direction and implementation of its educational programme was condemned to perpetuate low productivity, underdevelopment, retrogression, among other things.
He said the country should commit itself to the funding of public education at all levels, setting itself benchmarks and time lines for achieving determinable objectives.
“The time has come to ensure true parity in people’s access to quality and available education. The ever growing and expanding dichotomy between public and private educational opportunities in this country threatens not only to ossify the divide between the haves and have-nots but will also eventually lead to a dangerous and explosive enmity between those perceived to be the minority rich and exploitative elite and the marginalised poor hewers of wood and drawers of water,” he said.
Mr Gyan said until the child born to the poorest of the poor in the remotest parts of the country could objectively be assured of his/her constitutional right to quality and accessible education, the country would not be able to realise its dream of rapid socio-economic and industrial growth.
He observed that the continuous plummeting in the standards and fortunes of the public educational system, especially at the basic school level, was because the decision makers and implementers had their children attending private elite or international schools.
He said the implementers and decision makers “have no personal or emotional attachment to the public schools christened ‘saito’” and that some teachers at that level did not even send their children to the schools (saito) where they taught.
Mr Gyan said the situation today could not be compared to what pertained in the Nkrumah regime when majority of Ghanaian children rubbed shoulders with one another, mostly in public basic schools.
The Ahmadiyya Muslim Mission, he said, had contributed immensely to the growth and development of the country since it was introduced in 1921, adding that “through its many basic and secondary schools and more particularly through its truly open-door educational policies, it had afforded and continued to provide reasonably good opportunities for many citizens to access secular education”.
He said the mission was clearly the forerunner in Muslim secular education and stressed the need for it to ensure the proper development of its schools dotted across the country to provide equal and quality education.
He said to ensure proper standards in all its schools, the mission should set up a national education board with an independent division which would not only monitor its schools but also ensure that a common examination platform was created for all of its schools.
“That will engender positive competition, as well as provide a common standard for assessing the performance of all its schools,” Mr Gyan emphasised.

30th anniversary of June 4 Uprising marked in Accra

Page 16
June 5, 2009

ADHERENTS of the ideals of the June 4 Uprising have re-affirmed their faith in the principles that underlined the action and contend that public office holders must be made accountable for their stewardship.
Those principles of probity and accountability rhymed through speeches of various speakers at a symposium held in Accra last Wednesday night to mark the 30th anniversary of the revolution which toppled the government of the Supreme Military Council on June 4, 1979.
The speakers included former First Lady, Nana Konadu Agyemang-Rawlings, the Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Dr Kwabena Agyei, the Majority Leader in Parliament, Mr Alban Bagbin, a Deputy Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Mr Fiifi Kwetey and a private businessman, Mr Herbert Mensah.
Mrs Agyemang-Rawlings said it was unacceptable to sweep wrongdoing under the carpet and that people, no matter their stature, should be held accountable for their stewardship.
She said the current government believed in due process and that was why it had set out to investigate allegations of impropriety against some former government officials before charges were preferred against them.
According to her, Ghanaians needed to rededicate themselves to the principles and values of June 4, which included probity, accountability, justice, transparency, integrity and honesty.
The former First Lady spoke at the June 4 lectures as part of activities marking the 30th anniversary.
Thirty years ago, a group of young officers and men of the Ghana Armed Forces led by Flt Lt Jerry John Rawlings seized political power under the Supreme Military Council (SMC II) to purge the society of social and economic vices.
According to Mrs Agyemang-Rawlings, June 4 and its ideas stood for equity, equality, positive defiance and gender balance, among other things.
She cited for instance that the last eight years had been full of lies, stealing and injustice, and that the current government would restore confidence and hope in the people.
She said June 4 needed to be examined in the context of what happened in the country at the time when there were social and economic decadence, and that former President Rawlings intervened to bring hope to the people.
Mrs Agyemang-Rawlings underscored the need for the youth to have role models as there was no country which could develop without the contribution of its youth.
The NDC Member of Parliament (MP) for Nadowli West, Mr Alban Bagbin, said former President Rawlings was so much respected in the rest of the world because of his contribution to institutionalising democracy in the country.
Unfortunately, he said, the same was not applied to him in the country as some people said a lot of negative things about the ex-president, adding “a prophet is not welcomed in his own town”.
Mr Bagbin said there was gloom on May 15, but the country was liberated on June 4.
“We cannot afford to fail the people of Ghana. We do so at our own peril,”he summed up.
The National Chairman of the NDC, Dr Kwabena Adjei, said June 4 had come of age whether people liked it or not as it awoke people to humanism.
He said the government would continue to preach the principles of probity and accountability to instil discipline in the people.
A businessman and a sympathiser of the NDC, Mr Herbert Mensah, said although his heritage was from the United Party (UP) tradition, he shared the social democratic tradition of the NDC.
He said there was no conflict to being a businessman while adhering to the principles of social democracy.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General,Mrs Betty Mould Iddrisu, said the June 4 revolution delivered many Ghanaians from the period of oppression.
The June 4 Revolution, she said, also ushered Ghana into the 1992 democratic governance which had been uninterrupted till date.
According to her, the revolution had brought Ghanaians together as one people for the past 30 years.
Mrs Iddrisu also expressed commitment to bring any former government official who had abused his office before the law.
“No one is above the law,” she said, adding “So long as I am the Attorney General and the Minister of Justice, I pledge to bring anyone found guilty under the law of Ghana before the court”.
The Deputy Minister of Information, Mr Fifi Kwetey, said June 4 was a historic milestone and therefore needed to be celebrated.
He said the June 4 revolution was neither against wealthy people nor aimed at settling personal scores but to ensure that all Ghanaians would achieve wealth irrespective of their social status.

New offices for Teachers Fund

Page 20, 2009
June 3, 2009

A new office building for the Teachers Fund has been inaugurated in Accra with a call on teachers to take advantage of the existing facilities under the fund.
The facilities include a retirement package, personal loan, investment capital loan, habitat loan, vehicle loan and consumer credit items.
Mr Samuel Ofori-Adjei, the chairman of the fund, established by the Ghana National Association Teachers (GNAT), who made the call yesterday, said the board of trustees had “always carried this passion of making life comfortable for the teacher”.
He said the need for sufficient office accommodation had been the major motivation for undertaking the venture and that it was with a great sense of pride that the vision of the board to pursue its own accommodation had become a reality.
"From a small seed that was sown, the fund has seen such tremendous growth. As the fund continues to increase and in turn reproduce fully owned subsidiaries, the time has now come for building and relocating to enable further growth and multiplicity," he said.
An economist, Mr Kwame Pianim, who inaugurated the building, said when the seed for the fund was sown barely a decade ago, the dream of the founders was that it would "one day become the proverbial oak tree under whose branches members will find shelter from financial storms".
The President of GNAT, Mrs Portia A. Molly, said the fund was established to support and enhance the living conditions of GNAT members.
She, therefore, charged its board and management to focus on creating wealth and ensuring that the welfare needs of teachers were adequately catered for.
The General Secretary of GNAT, Mrs Irene Duncan-Adanusah, expressed the hope that the fund would come up with more products and ideas.

Govt to set up more public-funded varsities

Spread
June 11, 2009

THE Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, says the government will fulfil its pledge of establishing additional state-funded universities to widen access to tertiary education.
That, he said, would be done alongside the "improvement of physical and academic facilities in existing tertiary institutions to increase their intake and ensure quality delivery".
Mr Tettey-Enyo said this when he inaugurated the boards and councils of five agencies under the Ministry of Education in Accra yesterday.
They are the boards of trustees of the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF), the National Accreditation Board (NAB), the National Service Board, the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) and the Ghana Library Board.
The minister said polytechnic education would be given the needed support to strengthen the technical and vocational education training (TVET) system.
"The Ministry of Education is fully engaged in promoting and supporting the development of a balanced, integrated and holistic educational system in the country. The government is committed to marshalling the requisite resources to achieve its agenda for the educational sector," he said.
In the case of the NAB, he said, the government expected the board to protect the public interest by adopting pragmatic measures to ensure that quality was not compromised.
He said it should be the responsibility of the board to see to it that the profit motive of proprietors did not override the provision of the relevant atmosphere for quality teaching and learning in institutions.
He charged the National Service Board to continue with the Graduate Entrepreneurship Development Programme which had already started and also help to acquire the necessary logistics to do effective monitoring and evaluation.
"I would like to urge the board to consider reactivating and reinvigorating the Military Orientation and Community Improvement Unit of the scheme," he appealed.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said it was disheartening to observe that the Ghana Library Board had been without a board for close to two decades, saying that the expectations of Ghanaians were for the revival of the culture of reading in schools, colleges and universities.
He called on the boards and councils to adhere to the values of independence, objectivity, proactiveness, co-operation, efficiency and transparency which characterised the deliberations of the previous boards and councils.
A former Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Prof F.O. Kwami, thanked the government for the trust it had reposed in the boards and council members.
He pledged, on behalf of his colleagues, to carry out the task expected of them.

Consider producing fertilers locally

June 11, 2009
Page 21

THE Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Kwesi Ahwoi, has urged companies that import fertilisers to consider producing fertilisers locally.
That, he said, would encourage and boost the local production of the chemicals.
According to him, there was a huge demand for fertilisers locally by institutions and cited the ministry which had imported 80,000 metric tonnes of fertilisers for small-scale farmers engaged in food crop production.
Mr Ahwoi gave the advice when the Egyptian Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Seif Allah Nossier, presented a cheque for GH¢23,898, on behalf of the Egyptian government, to the Agriculture Ministry.
The support, made available through the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, will be used to purchase 12 tonnes of NPK compound fertiliser and 22.8 tonnes of sulphate of ammonia.
The minister thanked the Egyptian government for the support and said the ministry intended to give the fertilisers to a community so that the impact could be monitored and verified.
Mr Ahwoi expressed the hope that the distribution of fertilisers would go a long way to improve farming activities and the agricultural sector at large.
For his part, Mr Nossier described the presentation of the money as a symbolic gesture, saying relations between Ghana and Egypt dated back to the days of Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Gamel Abdel Nasser.
He said the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, which was under his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was established in 1982 by Dr Boutrous Boutros-Ghali to provide support for other African countries.
He said the presentation of the money followed a request by the immediate past Minister of Food and Agriculture, Mr Ernest Debrah, to the Secretary-General of the Egyptian Fund for Technical Co-operation, Ms Nevein Ashmawy, in July last year.
Mr Mehdi Saint-Andre, the Sales and Marketing Manager of Yara Ghana Limited, supplier of the fertilisers, promised that the chemicals would be delivered yesterday, June 10, 2009.

Min initiates Housing scheme for teachers

Front Page
June 13, 2009

THE Ministry of Education has initiated a housing scheme under which teachers and other educational workers in the country can own houses.
Already, the ministry has struck a deal with HFC Bank to pre-finance the scheme.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, who confirmed this to the Daily Graphic, said the scheme was part of efforts to motivate teachers and educational workers.
Tracts of land at Afienya in the Greater Accra Region have been earmarked for the commencement of the scheme.
The scheme is expected to be extended to other parts of the country, depending on the interests of the teachers and the educational workers.
The Head of the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Education, Mr Paul Krampah, said under the arrangement for the initiative, the HFC Bank would pay for the houses for interested teachers and educational workers and determine the repayment duration within a period of about 20 years.
He said the Minister of Education had already endorsed the arrangement with the HFC Bank for the funding of the houses as welfare package to enhance the government's initiative to support workers to own houses.
Categories under the scheme are the HFC affordable type of house for the average class, three-bedroom houses for the middle class and the four-bedroom type for the executive class.
The initiative also caters for those interested in buying land for their own construction.
Mr Krampah said the ministry would also negotiate with other banks to secure soft loans for teachers to access to build their own houses.
“In addition, we are negotiating with our development partners to have a revolving fund to enable teachers to access to put up their own houses,” he said, adding that the ministry was committed to improving the welfare of teachers.
He said interested persons should contact the Welfare Unit at the GES Headquarters to register and submit their pay slips for onward submission to the HFC Bank for documentation of the repayment process.

Free uniforms policy begins in Sept

Front Page
June 16, 2009

THE free school uniforms for one million basic school pupils which were promised by the government in this year’s budget are to be ready for distribution from September when the 2009/2010 academic year begins.
“Our target is the next academic year. We are looking at between September and December for the distribution,” the Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, told the Daily Graphic after inaugurating boards and councils of five agencies under the ministry.
He said guidelines for the distribution of the uniforms were being developed.
The provision of the free uniforms was contained in the 2009 budget statement delivered by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Dufuor.
The initiative is to benefit pupils from deprived communities as part of efforts to relieve the burden on their parents and encourage attendance in school.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said the government, apart from increasing access to school, was committed to the provision of infrastructure, motivation for teachers and improvement of the sector.
On the recent forum to discuss the duration of the senior high school programme, he said the ministry was packaging the outcome for the attention of the government.
Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Child Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, has described the move as good, “as it will ensure equity and access to education”.
“The criteria for selection of beneficiaries will be key because the gap between those in the urban and the rural areas is too big,” he stated.
He expressed the hope that the government would link the programme to already existing programmes such as the elimination of child labour, the school feeding programme and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) to know the extent to which they were making an impact in the various communities.
Mr Appiah, who is also the Chairman of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), suggested that the free uniform initiative should be implemented alongside the sensitisation and education of parents and guardians on the need to live up to their responsibilities.
In a related development, the Mr Tettey-Enyo left Accra last night to attend the Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference in Kualar Lumpur, Malaysia.
The Head of the Public Relations Unit at the Ministry of Education, Mr Paul Krampah, said the minister was accompanied by Mr Charles Tsegah, the Director of the Projects, Budget, Monitoring and Evaluation (PBME) Division of the ministry.
Issues aimed at improving education are key on the agenda of the conference.

‘Strengthen election monitoring capacities’

Page 15
June 18, 2009

THE United States Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Donald Teitelbum, has called for more support for civil society organisations to strengthen their capacity to monitor future elections.
Mr Teitelbaum, who made the call at the opening of the seventh international conference on Public Management, Policy and Development in Accra on Tuesday, said civil society groups had the potential to make a meaningful contribution towards smooth electioneering in the country.
The three-day event which is being attended by both local and foreign participants, is on the theme, “Transitional and sustainable approaches to improving development and administration”.
Mr Teitelbum commended the country for its conduct of yet another peaceful election, explaining that Ghana’s democratic progress was obvious to the world.
He said while Ghana had a lot to gain and learn from the US, alternatively America also had a lot to learn and gain from Ghana.
The Chief of Staff, Mr J.H. Newman, said he would like to see the management of “transitions better systematised and transparent to pre-empt members of the incoming and the outgoing administrations seeking to personalise or trivialise” such a vital process.
“The process of taking over of government had been fraught with major challenges, with National Democratic Congress (NDC) faithful impatient for a fast pace of work, while the New Patriotic Party (NPP) members wished that the transition period ended without any unpleasant actions befalling them,” he said.
The Executive Director of the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG), Dr Emmanuel Akwetey, stressed the need for the establishment of a transition commission to manage the transition from one government to another to minimise the problems associated with transitional processes in the country.
He said Ghana, Kenya and Zimbabwe were three countries which had identical election outcomes in recent times and said the margin of victory in the last elections in those countries was narrow, a situation which posed great challenges in the transition period.
Dr Akwetey said under that culture, the winner of the elections would want to put only its people in all the sectors and do away with the services of experts.
He, therefore, called for a review of the transitional rules to reflect the political dynamics of the 21st century.

Patronage at children’s library in Accra increases

Page 17
June 19, 2009

CONTRARY to the perception that children are not reading, patronage at the children’s library at the Ghana Library Board (GLB) in Accra Central has increased drastically.
The increase in patronage is as result of visits to schools by staff of the Library Board to sensitise children on the importance of reading.
According to the Head of the Children’s Library, Mrs Matilda Adjei, from a low figure of about 381 in 2007, the number of children who registered with the library in Accra increased to 769 in 2008 and then to 938 in May this year.
In addition to the sensitisation programme, the authorities of the board introduced a number of programmes including quizzes to whip up interest of the pupils.
The pupils who patronise the library are from the primary to junior high school level.
When the Daily Graphic paid a visit to the Children’s Library in Accra on Wednesday, the place was empty but Mrs Adjei, said the situation was normal during school hours.
However, she said, the place got full in the afternoon when schools had closed for the day, adding that during the vacation periods, the patronage started from the morning through to the evening.
“During the vacation period we get huge patronage from not only students from our catchment area, workers also bring their children for reading and pick them (children) up after work,” she emphsised.
The programme of activities at the library include Story Hour, where both staff and children tell stories.
In the course of the activity opportunity is given for children to ask questions on things they do not understand.
In addition, there is the Reading Clinic where children read on their own and are assisted in areas they find it difficult to understand.
“All these are done to promote reading and learning among children,” Mrs Adjei said, pointing out that games such as Oware, Scrabble, Ludo and Jig-saw Puzzle, went a long way to sustain the interests of the children.
One of the challenges at the library, she said, was the use of outdated books, and said “some of the children complained of reading the same book over and over again”.
Mrs Adjei, therefore, appealed to organisations and individuals to help in any way possible to improve and increase the stock of books with current reading and learning materials.
She said although the major challenge was finance, the authorities intended to provide Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at the library.
A pupil who visits the library regularly, Miss Jennifer Laryea, a form 2 student of the Wesley Junior High School at Palladium in Accra, told the Daily Graphic that going to the library had been of immense benefit to her.
She said she did not only read textbooks, but other story books to improve on her vocabulary and grammar.
She called on the government to put up more community libraries since they went a long way to help improve the academic performance of students and also keep them occupied.
The Executive Director of Child’s Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, welcomed the news of increase in the number of students that patronised the library.
Apart from pupils using the facility to study, he said, it would equip them with knowledge about issues which affected the growth of children as it would help them to know their rights.
The Chairman of the GLB Board, Mr Kosi Kedem, said at the inauguration of five agencies under the Ministry of Education that the government was committed improving facilities at the GLB.

GWCL to extend water to Togo

June 23, 2009
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THE Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) is to supply water to the city of Lome in the Republic of Togo, the Chief Manager in charge of Planning and Development, Mr Ebenezer Gabrah, has disclosed.
Under the project, all towns in the Volta Region through which the pipes would pass would benefit from the supply of clean water.
Mr Gabrah told the Daily Graphic that the supply of the water was based on a request from the Togolese authorities in view of water problem that country was facing.
He said the entire cost of the project would be borne by the Togolese authorities and that its commencement would depend on their ability to foot the cost involved.
Mr Gabrah said discussions on the project, which were in line with ECOWAS Protocol, were still ongoing, and that like the West African Gas Pipeline, the project was expected to get funding from other countries.
He said the discussions would come out with where the water treatment plant would be cited; either in Togo or Ghana.
He answered in the negative when asked whether or not the supply of water to Togo would not affect Ghana, with the assurance that steps were being taken to address the water situation in Ghana.
Mr Gabrah explained that as part of the project, a company, to be managed by Ghana, Togo and a private investor, would be established to run the project.
“It is early days yet, but this is an intention we have had for sometime,” he said, adding that he was meeting with his staff to look at the technical aspect of the project.
On the water situation in general in Ghana, he said efforts were being made to improve the situation.

GES, CHASS in deadlock

June 23, 2009
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THE Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS) have, for the second consecutive time, failed to agree on a new feeding fee for senior high schools.
A meeting held last Thursday to negotiate and arrive at a consensus on the feeding fee to take effect from the 2009-2010 academic year ended in deadlock, after a similar meeting had ended in a stalemate on June 3, 2009.
The CHASS is asking for the feeding fee to be reviewed upwards from the current 80Gp to GH¢1.20 in view of the increasing cost of foodstuffs. However, the GES presented GH¢1 during the two meetings which the heads of schools described as inadequate.
The 80Gp is used to feed students three times a day.
“At the meeting last Thursday, representatives of the GES and the ministry said the government was ready to pay GH¢1. We, however, disagreed, insisting on GH¢1.20, despite our previous stand of GH¢1.50. We also told them that the feeding fee did not go into only feeding the students but also the purchase of gas, among other things,” a source close to CHASS said.
It said the representatives of the GES and the ministry then promised to get back to the sector minister to convey the position of CHASS to him when he returned from the Commonwealth Education Ministers meeting.
The source said the GES was given up to mid July to come up with its position so that the new fee would be factored into students’ bills for the 2009-2010 academic year which would commence in September.
When contacted, the Director of the Basic and Secondary Education Division of the GES, Mr Stephen Adu, confirmed that the position of CHASS would be communicated to the minister.
He said the negotiation was still ongoing and expressed the hope that it would end early so that the new fee could be captured in students’ bills.
“We had fruitful discussions from both sides and we are still negotiating,” he said, adding that the GES wanted to be more strategic, since the increase did not affect only the government but parents as well.
Mr Adu said CHASS had been asked to use the scientific approach to see what the GH¢1 and the GH¢1.20 could provide.

ECG to improve power supply to Accra West

June 24, 2009
Page 31, 2009

Electricity supply to residents of Accra West is expected to improve in the next 12 weeks, the Accra West Regional Director of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG), Alhaji D.A. Jangu, has given the assurance.
He said by that period the company would have completed the current rehabilitation works to change old lines, among other things.
Alhaji Jangu gave the assurance an interview with the Daily Graphic when he paid a visit to the Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL) to acquaint himself with the power problems being experienced by the group.
"Currently, the ECG is undertaking six projects which will last six weeks. After that, we will undertake another six projects which will also last six week. All these are aimed at improving power supply to consumers," he said.
He appealed to residents to bear with the company as it took steps to improve on power supply.
He said most of the lines were old and very weak and, therefore, they could not function properly, hence the need to change them.
"Once this is done, the power situation will be stabilised," he emphasised.
He named some of the areas that had been experiencing power outages as Dansoman Exhibition and Kwashieman and charged residents of other areas who experienced power outages or fluctuations to inform the nearest ECG offices, since the company might not be aware of the situation.
He said last Friday’s rains did not affect the equipment of the company.
Alhaji Jangu said as part of efforts to check and improve its billing system, the company had, since 2005, introduced a software programme under which payments by customers were captured and updated regularly.
He said with the system, the staff did not need to ask for receipts from customers, as to whether they had paid or not, before carrying out a disconnection exercise, as that could easily be verified.
"Our only challenge is the banks through which people pay their bills. The banks do not inform us on a daily basis as to those who have paid," he said, adding that the company was discussing with the banks how the ECG could get daily information on those who had paid.
On the present state of introduction of prepaid meters, Alhaji Jangu said the exercise, through which 400 customers were given prepaid meters a day, was expected to be carried out at Kaneshie, Dansoman, Achimota and Bortiano, saying that "within the next six months we should be able to finish the whole of Accra West".
He said anybody who had a problem with the meters should contact the nearest ECG offices and indicated that the ECG had 400 prepaid vendors in the Accra West area alone to sell power to residents during the weekends, Sundays and on holidays.
He said the visit to the GCGL was part of an exercise being undertaken to identify the problems of major and minor customers and see how best the ECG could address them.

Speacial allowance for teachers

June 27, 2009
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THE government has approved a 20 per cent salary allowance for teachers who serve in deprived communities of the country.
The initiative, which is aimed at addressing disparity in teacher distribution to attract more teachers to deprived parts of the country, will be implemented from the next financial year.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, made this known at the 2009 National Education Sector Annual Review in Accra yesterday.
He said the Ghana Education Service (GES) had been charged to develop the modalities under which the teachers would benefit, adding that the GES must also take concrete measures to change teacher attitude and rationalise the distribution of teachers.
“Serious attention should be paid to improving the situation of teachers in public schools if quality teaching and learning is to be achieved,” he said, adding that “current concerns about teacher management, placement and terms and conditions of service require dispassionate discussion among all parties”.
Mr Tettey-Enyo noted that the compilation report on the National Education Forum which discussed the duration of the senior high school education had been completed and that it was submitted to Cabinet on Thursday.
During the year under review, he said, the educational sector had ensured that it remained focused on its goal to create more opportunities for knowledge acquisition, together with improving the quality of teaching and learning at every level.
“The launch of the Educational Reform in 2007 marked the turning point with the adoption of a new thinking and approach to the provision of education for the Ghanaian child. Efforts have, therefore, been made to ensure that the educational system is able to respond to the changing needs of the political, economic social spheres of national development,” he said.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said the National Apprenticeship Programme, which would provide opportunity for skills training for JHS graduates who opted for a work-focused technical and vocational training, would commence this year.
With the establishment of the Council for Technical and Vocational Education and Training (COVET), he said, it was expected that a re-packaging of TVET would help remove the misconceptions about technical education.
He said such new outlook should lead to the strengthening of the link among industry, employers and institutions offering TVET.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said the preliminary report during the year showed that there was an increase in both the number of schools and enrolment at the basic level, with the primary gross enrolment ratio now 95.2 per cent and net ratio reaching 83.4 per cent.
The gross admission rate, he said, rose to 107.3 per cent, pointing out that “the efforts of the campaign to send girls to school are also showing results, with a decreasing gap between boys and girls, especially at the point of completion”.
“The situation at the junior high school (JHS) level is equally improving. Actual enrolments have increased by 25 per cent from 2003-2004, with the current gross enrolment ratio at 78.8 per cent, albeit quite marginal. Senior high school (SHS) is also experiencing slight increases in enrolment,” he said.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said despite the evidence of considerable weaknesses in the attainment of literacy and numeracy skills, steady progress was being made towards improving the teaching and learning of literacy skills.
On textbooks, he said their distribution had improved currently, except in some areas of the north where disparities in the allocation of books had become evident.
The acting Chief Director of the Ministry of Education, Mr James Afranie, said the review meeting, among other things, was to discuss the draft 2010-2020 education plan.

Let's fight against occultism, cyberfraud

June 27, 2009
Page 19

THE Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has called for a collective effort against the rising menace of occultism and cyberfraud among schoolchildren in the country.
“There is an emergence of occultism which to me is of a greater concern than all others known in recent times. This would require the combined efforts of us all to address for the good of our students and the entire country,” he said.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said this in address read on his behalf at the sixth graduation and prize-giving day of the Galaxy International School in Accra last Thursday.
He said much as the ministry believed in the rights of the individual to worship and join associations, it wished that all stakeholders, especially parents, would inculcate in their children societal values that would produce the committed individuals required by society.
He said parents’ role should go beyond the payment of school fees and dues, adding that “it is necessary to support institutional rules and regulations aimed at instilling discipline and acceptable student and staff behaviour”.
Mr Tettey-Enyo stressed the need for students to cultivate positive attitudes and eschew those that were inimical to the progress of academic work and discipline.
“Be reminded that you are yourselves the architects of your future. This time that you have the chance of being in school, make the best of every situation,” he said.
He said discipline was inseparable from academic excellence, and that in areas where discipline was found to be at its lowest ebb, moral decadence set in and in turn eroded that sense of commitment that would be required of the youth in studies and preparation for purposeful career development.
Mr Tettey-Enyo called for effective supervision and motivation for teachers and students.
He commended the authorities of the Galaxy International School for admitting children from different cultures, saying “coming from 58 cultural backgrounds and with a population of over 570 students, I consider interaction in this school a very productive one as it has the propensity to create a healthy school environment which would culminate in the socio-economic growth of Ghana”.
The government, he said, was poised to deliver good quality education to the people.
The General Manager of Galaxy International School, Mr Tamer Kirca, said since 2001 when the school was established, it had not ceased to develop in terms of infrastructure, curricula, academic performance and student numbers.
One essential characteristic of the school’s international status, he said, was that it gave its students the opportunity to pursue either the British or the Ghanaian system of education.
He said the school used state-of-the-art teaching and learning facilities like the modern science laboratories, computer laboratories, a well-resourced library, broadband internet facilities for research work, as well as a multinational teaching staff.
Mr Kirca said the school had acquired a huge land and that plans were underway to construct a modern school complex.

Stimulate Research -Tettey-Enyo

28-07-09
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THE Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, has charged the councils of the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) and the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) to stimulate research activities.
That, he said, was to ensure that they became more relevant and competitive within the international academic community.
Mr Tettey-Enyo made the call at the inauguration of the councils of the GIJ and IPS in Accra yesterday.
The GIJ board is chaired by Alhaji A.B.A. Fuseini, the Night Editor of the Daily Graphic, while that of the IPS is chaired by Mr Justice Nii Aryeetey, the Registrar of the Methodist University College.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said although the tertiary educational system had made some significant strides, it was still confronted with a number of challenges, including limited access, inequity, issues of quality, relevance, management and governance.
In terms of access, he said, there was the tendency for students of second-cycle institutions to look up mainly to the universities for tertiary education.
“Both the GIJ and the IPS are now attracting students with very good grades from second-cycle institutions. I would like to urge you to continue this positive trend,” he said.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said in exercising the responsibility of appointing rectors, a council should ensure that the chief executive of the institution was one who would not only offer vision and academic leadership but also maintain harmonious human and industrial relations within the institution.
He said although the GIJ and the IPS enjoyed a substantial degree of autonomy, it did not imply a lack of accountability, adding that the respective acts under which the institutions operated set the various measures of accountability.
He said as a member of a council, one derived his/her source of authority from the instrument of appointment and the act and statutes of the institution and, therefore, urged members of both councils to familiarise themselves with them.
The other members of the GIJ council are Mr David Newton, Rector; Mr Ransford Tetteh, President of the Ghana Journalists Association (GIJ); Mr K.A. Batse, acting Vice-Rector of the GIJ; Mr Ebo Afful, lecturer, GIJ; Mr Ofoe Diogo, media practitioner; Mrs Helen Annan, Mr Richard Quashigah, lecturer, IPS, and Mr Paul Kofi Krampah, the Head of the Public Relations Unit of the Ministry of Education.
The members of the IPS board are Prof Joshua Alabi, the Rector; Mr Harrison Abutiate, Mr Pius Kweku Addae, Mr Kaleem Sulemana Adam, Puotiere Ken Yelibo and Peace Adzadi.
The others are Prof Osborne Jackson, Dr Anthony Ahiawodze, Mr James Abban, Mr Nkrumah Ekow Felix, Ms Augustine Kessie, Ms Helen Boafo and Mr Paul Effah.
Mr Justice Aryeetey, on behalf of the council members, thanked President J.E.A. Millis for giving them the opportunity to serve their country.

Moves to improve enrolment of girls in school

July 29, 2009
Page 11

THE Girls Education Unit of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has adopted a number of strategies and programmes to improve girls’ enrolment and retention in school.
The strategies are being implemented in collaboration with the country’s development partners, non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and community-based organisations (CBOs) to “increase access of girls to the full cycle of education”.
They include community mobilisation and sensitisation to create awareness of the importance of girls’ education, the organisation of role model outreach programmes, the development and dissemination of communication materials to educate people on the importance of girls’ education and the organisation of radio or television programmes to promote girls’ education.
The Director of the Public Relations Unit of the GES, Mr Charles Parker-Allotey, told the Daily Graphic that the strategies were adopted at a meeting to look at the status of girls’ education in the country by the Girls Education Unit.
The objectives of the unit for the year 2015 and beyond, he said, were to increase national enrolment of girls in basic education to equal that of boys by 2015, develop and maintain strategies aimed at ensuring the continuation of girls from basic to secondary education, develop programmes to enhance social capital of girls and ensure effective co-ordination, capacity building, as well as monitoring and evaluation.
The Girls Education Unit was established in 1997 after a series of studies conducted to ascertain the reasons contributing to the low participation of girls in formal education.
Initially, it was set up as a task force to address the challenges girls encounter in accessing the full cycle of at least basic education but later it was transformed into a unit within the Basic Education Division of the GES.
Mr Parker-Allotey said under the policies and international targets to improve girls’ education, “strategies under the education strategic plan have been adopted towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and the Education For All (EFA) goals that are related to girls”.
The goals, he said, were achieving universal primary education which ensured that all boys and girls completed a full course of primary schooling and ensuring the elimination of gender disparities in primary and secondary education.
He said the unit identified socio-cultural beliefs and practices as some of the constraints that militated against girls having access to education.
In addition, he said, irresponsible parenting, travelling long distances, remoteness of schools and communities, as well as general inadequacy of funding for girls education, affected girls’ access to education.
Mr Parker-Allotey said in spite of the challenges, some successes had been achieved in the area of girls having access to education.
For instance, the institution of the Capitation Grant had awakened the interest of girls in education and raised their enrolment.
Others, he said, were the supply of bicycles to girls commuting long distances, the provision of food rations by the World Food Programme (WFP), as well as scholarships and intensification of community sensitisation activities.
“It is clear that progress has been made towards achieving gender parity since 2005, albeit slow, and this has been possible through the effort and support of the development partners, NGOs and all who have a stake in girls’ education,” he said.

Involve communities in school feeding programme

Page 11
July 31,2009

THE Ghana Education Service (GES) should amend its Capitation Grant guidelines to involve community participation in the development of school performance improvement plans, a report issued by a Forum on Community Participation in Education Management has recommended.
That, it said, “would strengthen community ownership of schools and their participation in education management”.
The report called for a regular capacity-building for school management committees (SMCs) and parent-teacher-association (PTA) to enable them to understand their roles in school management.
“The roles of the district education planning team should be evaluated in the light of the establishment of the community participation coordinators. The various units should be strengthened with the necessary budgetary allocation and institutional support to enable them to function effectively,” the report said.
Mrs Evelyn Arthur, Chief Party of GAIT II, who presented the report of the forum to the Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, last Friday, said the report recommended for a budgetary allocation to be made for a regular training and refresher training for SMCs and PTAs.
The report, she said, underscored the need for the GES to make district directorates of education aware of the central role community participation activities played in improving education management, so that such activities would be budgeted for as part of the priority items under donor and government support.
“Teacher training curricula should include community participation. Teacher trainees should be well-tutored in practical ways of involving communities in education management,” the report said.
The forum, from which the report was developed, was held under the Government Accountability Improves Trust Programme (GAIT II), funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Responding to the report, Mr Tettey-Enyo said weaknesses in community participation in school management was a problem that needed to be addressed.
“Research has shown that community participation is weak,” he said, and stressed the need for it to be at the core of activities in education delivery.
A Deputy Minister of Education, Dr J.S. Annan, said community participation was critical in aspects of development, adding that civic education could help in strengthening community participation in school.
The Director General of the GES, Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, said the service would study the report and come out appropriately.

Oil production to start next year -Tullow

TULLOW Ghana Limited, one of the companies involved in oil exploration in the country, has reaffirmed its commitment to start producing oil by the last quarter of next year.
It said it was working diligently and feverishly to produce first-class quality products.
The company is expected to produce 120,000 barrels of oil a day when it starts production.
The Vice-President of External Affairs and Corporate Social Responsibility of Tullow Ghana, Ms Rosalind Kainyah, made this known when she led a three-member delegation to pay a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the Graphic Communications Group Limited, Mr Ibraham Awal, in Accra yesterday.
The other members of the delegation wee Mr Kofi Esson, the Government and External Relations Manager, and Okyeame Ampadu-Agyei, the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Manager.
Tullow Oil Plc is one of Europe’s leading independent exploration and production companies operating a balanced world-wide portfolio which stretches across Africa, Europe, South Asia and South America.
The company is a versatile and balanced group with a portfolio of quality oil and gas assets managed by a team with excellent technical, commercial and financial skills.
Its exploratory successes in the Jubilee and adjoining fields have made Ghana one of Tullow’s most important concessions.
Ms Kainyah said the company was committed to improving the lot of the people in its area of operation to ensure that they led better lives.
According to her, the company would not only provide employment opportunities for the people but also equip them and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) with the requisite training.
She explained that oil revenue would be used for the benefit of the people and described the discovery of oil in the country as a blessing.
Ms Kainyah said the company would engage in sound environmental practices and indicated that its environmental impact assessment (EIA) would be made public next week by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Mr Awal urged Tullow Ghana to learn from the problems some oil exploration companies were facing in other countries to avoid confrontation with the local people.
He pledged the commitment of the GCGL to partner and work with the company and urged it to take advantage of the GCGL’s newspapers to do business in the country.
According to him, the GCGL had 85 per cent of the market share, of which Tullow could take advantage as it operated in the country, adding that it should not wait until there were problems.
He said G-Pak, a subsidiary of the GCGL, was also available for the printing of high quality labels
For his part, Mr Esson said the company was sponsoring 14 members of staff of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) to pursue practical studies in various disciplines in oil and gas exploration and production, adding that 10 of them were into petroleum engineering.
Tullow has interests in two exploration licences offshore Ghana — Deepwater Tano and West Cape Three Points.
Both blocks lie in deep water and in 2007 two successful exploration wells located a substantial discovery which straddles the boundary between the two blocks, known as the Jubilee Field.
In 2008, an accelerated Jubilee appraisal and development programme commenced on the field. The first appraisal well, Mahogany-2, was drilled in May, followed by the Hyedua-2 and Mahogany-3 wells at the end of 2008.
The results from these wells indicated that Jubilee is a continuous stratigraphic trap with combined hydrocarbon columns in excess of 600 metres.

950 Vodafone workers to go home

02-08-09
Page 3

NINE hundred and fifty workers of Vodafone Ghana Limited are to go home on compulsory redundancy by the end of November this year.
According to the company, the exercise would be done in a fair and transparent manner, and in line with the terms negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement and other conditions of service, which required the payment of three months basic salary for each year of service for staff affected by compulsory redundancy.
“We expect up to 950 employees to leave under compulsory redundancy by the end of November 2009. A new organisation structure will come into place by December 1, 2009,” the Chief Manager, Corporate Communications of Vodafone Ghana, Mr Isaac Abraham, said at a press conference in Accra yesterday.
He said clear exit procedures would be followed and all affected employees would be given a three-month notice before exit.
He said as was done in the last two voluntary exit programmes, the company would offer full transition support for affected staff in the form of entrepreneurial training, investment advice, counselling and preparation for life after Vodafone Ghana.
Mr Abraham said the company had notified the Labour Office, the senior staff association and the Communications Workers Union that Vodafone Ghana was being restructured to deliver enhanced value for customers and ensure commercial success in a competitive market.
“We have offered two voluntary exit programmes this year. The second one, at the request of the union, was restricted to non-unionised employees. We, however, received a number of requests for voluntary redundancy from colleagues who belong to the union and we have now accepted all these,” he said.
He said the company would continue to consider voluntary applications on a case-by-case basis, since it was critical to give everyone a personal choice during the time of change.
Mr Abraham said last year, the company reported a loss of GH¢264 million, adding, “We urgently need to turn Vodafone Ghana into a strong and successful business for the benefit of our customers and our employees.”
The business model of the company, he said, needed to be sustainable in the long term, delivering better service to customers through more efficient process and significantly reduced complexity.
He said the company would become successful by focusing on its core business and by automating its processes to reduce duplication and build efficiency, adding that it had recently created jobs in the wider community through direct sales agents.
Mr Abraham said the company had more than 7,000 sales agents, and that 1,200 more were to be added as commissioned sale agents.
Vodafone took over Ghana Telecom about a year ago under the purchase agreement that gave the company 70 per cent ownership of Ghana Telecom.

GNAT takes delivery of cars for teachers

03-08-09
Page 11

THE Teachers Fund, owned and operated by the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has taken delivery of 50 vehicles for onward supply to members.
The vehicles is part of a consignment of 150 vehicles the fund is expecting to present to its members this year.
At a ceremony to present the first batch of vehicles, the Chairman of the fund, Mr Samuel Ofori-Adjei, said the presentation which was the second, fell under the Teachers Fund Vehicle Loan Scheme.
In 2006, he said, the fund gave out 36 vehicles to members.
The Teachers Fund was set up 11 years ago to encourage teachers to save towards their retirement and also to provide lifestyle enhancing facilities to its members. The facilities include personal, investment and habitat.
Mr Ofori-Adjei said the objectives of the scheme were to offer members of the fund the opportunity to acquire their own vehicles to enhance their productivity at work.
In addition, he said, the fund was to offer the younger generation the opportunity to own cars that befitted their social status and also matched that of their peers in other sectors of the economy.
Loan amounts of GHC 6,500, he said, “are available under the facility to be paid over a period of three to seven years”, adding that “beneficiaries are expected to put up some deposits in situations were the vehicle price exceed the maximum loan amount”.
Mr Ofori-Adjei said applicants “must be GNAT members only, members of the fund for not less than three years, must have contributed a minimum of GHC 20 for a minimum of 12 months, must be capable of supporting the monthly repayments through the Controller and Accountant General’s payroll system and must be able to fully pay off the loan before retirement”.
“I would like to urge teachers to join GNAT, register with the fund and also increase their contribution to enjoy all that the fund has to offer,” he said, and indicated that the fund would continue to purchase new and home used vehicles for teachers under the scheme.

Call on retired teachers to register with NVP

August 3, 2009
Page 38

THE Director of the National Service Scheme (NSS), Mr Vincent Kuagbenu, has called on retired teachers to register with the National Volunteer Programme (NVP) to be engaged to fill the vacancies in the classrooms.
That, he said, was in view of the fact that, according to the Education Sector Report, 17 per cent of teachers abandoned the classrooms for other vocations between 2004 and 2008.
Mr Kuagbenu made this known at a stakeholders’ forum on senior high school graduates in Accra.
He said the NSS was prepared to fill the vacancies in the classrooms once people made themselves available for the NVP and national service.
According to him, about 60 per cent of the about 30,000 people who took part in national service in the 2008/2009 service year were sent to the rural areas to assist in teaching, among other things.
Mr Kuagbenu said the government was saddled with the huge responsibility of addressing problems at all levels of the country’s educational system and charged parents, corporate bodies and non-governmental organisations to give support in that direction.
He expressed concern over anti-social behaviour among some SHS graduates who could not continue with their education and stressed the need for all to assist in addressing those problems.
The Bishop of the Full Gospel Church International, Rt Rev Samuel Noye Mensah, called for the establishment of a national youth scheme for SHS graduates.
“A scheme that will give these students the opportunity to serve their country while learning and on transit to the tertiary level,” he said, adding that the scheme “could also be a module integrated into the National Youth Employment Programme”.
He said the country had reached a stage where it had to regularise the recruitment of SHS students into job openings that could occupy them.
Rt Rev Mensah urged the various stakeholders to engage the services of SHS graduates in places such as the district assemblies, industries and agriculture.
The Ga Mantse, King Tackie Tawiah III, who chaired the function, said the youth should not limit their social horizons to living in urban centres, as their success could lie in the rural areas.
He charged the youth to prepare themselves adequately for the challenges by capitalising on existing opportunities to succeed in life.
The Chief Executive Officer of Schoolmate Investments, organisers of the forum, said the project was to empower the youth, especially SHS graduates, to take active part in national development.

240,000 Barrels of oil a day -Production to begin in 2013

August 3, 2009
Front Page

THE country will produce 240,000 barrels of oil and 240,000 million standard cubic feet of gas per day under the second phase of the Jubilee Field project which is expected to commence in 2013, the Deputy Minister of Energy, Dr Kwabena Donkor, has disclosed.
According to him, “the appraisals so far conducted indicate that the Jubilee Field contains expected recoverable reserves of about 800 million barrels of light crude, with an upside potential of about three billion barrels”.
Dr Donkor, who made this known when he opened a two-day seminar on oil and gas for youth activists in Accra last Saturday, said there were greater prospects for the discovery of more oil.
The event, which was on the theme, “Oil and Gas Exploration in Ghana: Opportunities and Threats for the Youth”, was organised by the Youth Network for Human Rights and Democracy and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES).
Dr Donkor said under Phase One of the Jubilee Field project, 120,000 barrels of oil and 120,000 million standard cubic feet of dry gas per day would be produced next year.
He said the discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities provided the country an immense opportunity to effectively improve its economy, for which reason all sectors of the economy were positioning themselves for the take-off into the new economic horizon created by the oil and gas discoveries.
“There are many who are sceptical and are asking whether the oil and gas find will be a curse for Ghana, as it has been the case in some African countries. Whether the oil and gas discoveries will be a curse or a blessing will depend on the collective will of the people of Ghana,” he said.
Dr Donkor said with the discoveries, a number of opportunities were knocking at the doors of the youth at the various stages of the oil and gas industry in the upstream, midstream and downstream activities.
These, he said, were drilling services, production maintenance service, geological services, engineering, fabrication and construction.
In addition, he said, opportunities existed in sectors such as insurance, food and beverages, transportation, health and safety, banking and financial services, as well as seismic.
He said it was, therefore, up to the youth to take advantage of the opportunities and urged educational institutions to position themselves by introducing programmes that had relevance to the market being created by the oil and gas find.
He said as a result of the oil threats, the government, on coming into office, withdrew the Petroleum Bill from Parliament for further review and broader stockholder participation before re-submission to Parliament.
“Though the production horizon of the oil in the Jubilee Field may be short (20 years), the ministry is leaving no stone unturned in ensuring that the necessary legislation and institutions are put in place to ensure that the benefits of the oil find in our time will also extend to those yet unborn,” Dr Donkor emphasised.
The Executive Director of the Youth Network for Human Rights and Democracy, Mr Prosper Hoetu, said the organisation was a youth-oriented one committed to building the capacities of young people for good governance, peace building and conflict prevention towards consolidating democracy in the country.
He said the country’s discovery of oil and gas in commercial quantities came as good news in the midst of its socio-economic challenges, saying that when they were managed properly, oil and gas could be a major source of socio-economic transformation.
The Programmes Co-ordinator of the FES, Mr Danaa Nantogmah, said while oil discovery had been regarded as a blessing, in Africa “it is often associated with the resource curse phenomenon”.
The objective of the seminar, he said, was to provide basic knowledge and understanding of the emerging oil and gas industry.
Mr Nantogmah expressed the hope that the seminar would provide a platform for youth leaders and activists to devise strategies to effectively engage the government and other stakeholders in developing and implementing a national oil and gas policy that would safeguard the environment and prevent political corruption and violent conflict.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

SHS BACK TO THREE YEARS -Effective Next Academic year

August 4, 2009
Front Page Lead

THE government has decided to change the duration of the senior high school (SHS) from four to three years, effective this academic year.
The decision follows Cabinet’s approval of the three-year SHS system.
The Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, who disclosed this to the Daily Graphic yesterday, however, said the current SHS One and Two students who began the four-year programme would be made to complete the four-year programme.
He said Cabinet had directed the Ministry of Education to work on the transition from four years back to three years, adding that the government would seek amendments to the act that made SHS education four years.
“We are working on the transition from three to four years which will be ready any time this week,” he said, adding that the current decision was one of the recommendations of the Anamuah-Mensah Committee.
He dismissed the argument that the future of children was being toyed with and indicated that the lack of infrastructure to cater for the four-year system, cost on parents, among other things, were some of the factors considered.
The four-year SHS educational system introduced by the immediate past government took off on September 11, 2007. Under the system, the names of first and second-cycle schools were changed from the then junior secondary school (JSS) and senior secondary school (SSS) to junior high school (JHS) and SHS, respectively.
Mr Tettey-Enyo said the arguments raised at the national education forum held on May 27 and 28, 2009 to discuss the duration of the SHS programme were studied as part of the decision to change the system.
He said the government would not relent in its efforts at providing the necessary infrastructure and textbooks and motivating teachers to bring about an improvement in the educational system.
He said there was the need to strengthen the JHS as part of efforts to address the problems that were faced at the SHS level.
“If we strengthen the JHS system, most of the problems at the SHS level will be solved,” he emphasised.