New classroom blocks, water closets inaugurated at Dansoman

The Minister of Communications and Digitilisation, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, assisted by the Municipal Chief Executive of Ablekuma West Municipal Assembly, George Cyril Bray, on Tuesday inaugurated two newly constructed classroom blocks at Dansoman in Accra.

The projects funded by the assembly were a two-storey nine-unit classroom block with 10-seater water closet at Saint Margaret Mary Senior High School, and seven unit classroom block with facilities suchas offices, store, and staff common room at Akweibu Basic School.

Inaugurating the projects, Mrs Ursula Owusu-Ekuful said the new classroom blocks would help enhance teaching and learning in the schools.

She urged the students to be disciplinedand study hard to become responsible adults, adding that “the future of the country depended on the youth of this country.

“The students must endeavour to study hard to ensure the infrastructure do not become waste,” she advised.

Mrs Owusu-Ekuful commended the staff of the school for their contribution in promoting education delivery in the country, and assured them of the government’s continuous efforts to help them achieve their goals.

Touching on Information Communication Technology (ICT), the Minister said the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communication (GIFEC) was constructing acommunity ICT centre on the school compounds for use by the community.

The minister said this year, the ministry was training about 5,000 girls in five regions.

“It has already started and next week we are training 1,000 in the North East Region but as part of that programme as well, every region we go to we train 100 teachers so that even after the end of the programme they can go back to their schools.”

Mr George Cyril Bray in his remarks said the Assembly was making the necessary efforts to promote access to quality education in the municipality.

“One sure way of fighting ignorance,poverty,disease and other such challenges confronting our nation is through education and the Free Senior High School programme introduced by government in2017 was to stem the tide of high rate of school drop-outs due to financial challenges,” he noted.

He said within the short period of existence of the Assembly they had been able to undertake projects, such as the construction of police stations at SSNIT Flat and Shiabu, construction of a laboratory at Dansoman Polyclinic, construction of mechanised boreholes at Okpoti and Akweibu schools.

Mr Bray urged school authorities to put prudent measures in place to ensure a high level of maintenance culture for buildings and facilities.

The outgoing headmistress of Saint Margaret Mary, Mrs Rose Buah Bassuah, called on the government to help complete abandoned projects in the school.

She commended the Assembly for the initiative, and assured that the facility would be maintained to expand its lifespan.

Present at the programme were officials from the education sector, traditional rulers, government officials and police personnel among others.

BY ANITA NYARKO-YIRENKYI