GARU-TEMPANE DISTRICT BUILDS MORE SCHOOLS (PAGE 35, DEC 21)

FOUR deprived and remote communities in the Garu-Tempane District of the Upper East Region are to benefit from educational infrastructure to be provided at a total cost of about GH¢281,000.
The school buildings, which would be funded from the District Development Fund, will be located at Bulipelisi, Kongo, Akara and Nomboko.
Apart from Bulipelisi, which is benefiting from a nine-unit classroom block, an office, store, a borehole, six seater KVIP and urinal, the remaining three communities will each have a three-unit classroom block , an office, store, four-seater KVIP and a urinal.
When completed, it will ease the burden of junior high school students who hitherto had to walk between 10 and 13 kilometres to attend school.
The District Chief Executive(DCE) for Garu-Tempane, Mr David Adakudugu, told the Daily Graphic after a tour of the beneficiary communities to hand over the sites to the various contractors for work to start that the projects were intended to bring relief to the people and ensure that they no longer walk long distances to attend school.
He said the projects were approved by the general assembly in June this year, but failed to take off due to lack of funds.
He, therefore, expressed his pleasure that funds had now been made available for the projects to take off.
The DCE said in all, 11 JHS projects were approved for 2009, but funds available could cater for four.
He said anytime the assembly was able to raise funds, the other seven projects would be tackled.
He said the next step would be to ensure that the classrooms were adequately furnished and that efforts were underway to ensure that the assembly sourced for funds to provide furniture for the various schools.
In respect of the unavailability of teachers in the district, Mr Adakudugu said the assembly was assisting in the training of more teachers.
Currently, 130 teacher trainees are being sponsored in various colleges of education, adding that upon completion, they would be posted to various schools in the district to teach.
He commended the Ministry of Education for approving the construction of an office facility for the district education directorate.
He said the inadequate office facility had forced over 52 senior staff at the directorate to operate under a tree.
The District Engineer, Mr Emmanuel Botchwey, appealed to chiefs, opinion leaders and community members to co-operate with the contractors for the early completion of the projects.
Mr Simon Avuuga, who represented the district director of education on the tour, thanked the district assembly for its resolve to construct more schools in the district, but urged the DCE and the assembly to work out modalities for getting more teachers posted to the district since a lot of the schools in the district lacked teachers.
In another development, the district assembly has awarded a contract for the reshaping of the Garu –Gagbiri road. This will involve the rehabilitation of a huge culvert on the road, which is in a bad state and currently a death trap.
The other road to be rehabilitated is the Garu and Tempane feeder roads . The two projects are being funded under the Community Based Rural Development Programme.
The DCE commended the Ministry of Roads and Transport for assisting the district with a comprehensive road network map and said the assembly would do its best to ensure that the entire district was linked to enhance the movement of people, goods and services.
Other development projects being embarked on by the assembly include the rehabilitation of the Garu court building and the Kpatia primary school.
Funds for the two projects are from the District Assembly Common Fund.
Mr David Adakudugu said development in the relatively young district was on course, and appealed to the Government and non-governmental organisations, as well as development partners to come to their aid in the provision of social amenities.