GRi Newsreel 01 - 10 -
2003
Ministry to rate schools by their performance
Communities urged to help improve conditions in schools
"Law does not prohibit women from standing surety"
Youth Association donates books to school
"Stigmatisation is greatest obstacle to fight against
AIDS"
Ajumako District holds forum on investment
Hackman to contest Gomoa-West NPP primaries
Public structures should be made accessible to the disabled
NGO trains 300 peer educators for fight AIDS
Religious leaders urged to lead HIV/AIDS campaign
Help achieve objectives of REP - Stakeholders told
Sensitisation forum on AIDS held at Akropong-Akuapem
Rainstorm hits Adoe in Noranza District
440 schools built from HIPC fund nationwide
Yendi District hit by power failure
Stick to practices to maintain cocoa quality - Chief Farmer
Ministry to rate schools by their performance
Accra (Greater Accra) 01 October 2003 - The Ministry of Education is to start ranking basic and secondary schools according to their performance in external examinations and to publish the ratings, Mr Kwadwo Baah-Wiredu, Minister of Education, Youth and Sports has said.
Baah-Wiredu, who said this in an interview with journalists in Accra, on Tuesday said the rankings would enable the public to appreciate and monitor the performance of schools in their communities and contribute their quota to enhance their accomplishments.
He said generating public interest in the performance of schools would push students and their authorities to improve upon their efforts as the environment would become very competitive.
The Minister, however, noted that given the different conditions and facilities under which schools in rural and urban schools operated, the assessment criteria would be fair to all.
Already, Mr Baah-Wiredu said the Ministry, under its Education Management Information System (EMIS) project, annually published data and indicators on a variety of education issues from the district to the national level.
The data include student enrolment, teacher characteristics, teacher-student ratio, school facilities, funding and students' achievements based on examinations conducted by the West African Examinations Council.
Baah-Wiredu said the data was very useful as it gave a comprehensive image of the state of education in each locale to support the planning, implementation and monitoring of activities and programmes in the education sector.
It also enabled the reader to monitor the trend of performance to see whether it was improving or deteriorating, while allowing the reader to compare the situation in one district or region to another.
Baah-Wiredu urged policy makers at all levels of education, NGOs, community leaders, parliamentarians, media practitioners, parents and other stakeholders in education to constantly acquire copies of the report, "Education Indicators at a Glance" for their use.
The Ministry, he said, would soon put the data on its website and make copies available in libraries, schools and other strategic places to make them accessible.
The Minister said it was erroneous for people to speculate that the Ministry lacked the relevant data on schools, especially at the basic level, for the planning and formulation of programmes while so much data was available.
Samuel Okane, Senior Programmer for the EMIS Project, said the collection and processing of information for the project had been decentralised to make the process easier for contributors.
The decentralisation process had so far covered 26 districts and the 10 regional capitals, he said. Okane, however, complained about the uncooperative attitude of some school authorities that refused to return or unduly delayed questionnaires submitted to them.
He said private school proprietors were the worse culprits, adding that, their attitude would deny the nation accurate information, especially for the full implementation of the Free Compulsory and Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) programme, as it would be difficult to determine whether or not all children of school going age were enrolled by the deadline.
The Graduate School of Education of the Harvard University, United States supports the EMIS project, which started 10 years ago.
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Communities urged to help improve conditions in schools
Apam (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - Isaac I. Baidoo, Acting Gomoa District Director of Education, on Tuesday urged communities to show more commitment to the improving the conditions in schools in their areas.
He said the days when schools were regarded as government property were over and that communities now had a responsibility not only in the improvement of the physical conditions of schools but also in ensuring effective teaching and learning.
He was speaking at a fund raising forum organised by the Parent-Teacher Association and School Management Committee (SMC), of the Apam Methodist A and C School towards the rehabilitation of a classroom block.
The 12-unit one storey block, which was donated to the school by Mr T. K. Caiquo, a citizens, in 1975 is in a deplorable state, as it had not undergone any renovation since its construction.
The building has developed cracks, with the wooden barristers falling apart, while the entire block appears to be sinking, posing serious risk to the lives of the pupils and teachers. Baidoo appealed to past students of the school, some of who are in responsible positions to help rehabilitate the block.
Rev. George Ampiah-Bonney, outgoing Minister in charge of the Apam Methodist Church, advised parents to regard children as gifts from God, saying that a time would come when they would be asked to render account on the roles they played in the upbringing of the children entrusted to their care.
He reminded parents about the caution given by Jesus Christ about the maltreatment of children and said their inability to provide them with adequate facilities for their education amounted to maltreatment. T.B. Arthur, Gomoa District Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), deplored the attitude of the people towards communal labour.
He cited an instance in which a head teacher had to use his own money to hire labour to raise the foundation of a school block financed by European Union because the citizens who were to provide the counterpart funding in the form of communal labour failed to turn up.
The Headmaster, Mr. Harry Acquah said the school authorities were forced to admit only a small number of students this academic year due to the state of the building and appealed to the district assembly and donor agencies to help rehabilitate it.
Other speakers at the function included Mr. Kenneth Moorer, the school's SMC Chairman.
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"Law does not prohibit women from standing surety"
Ekumfi Essarkyir (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - The Mfantseman District Director of the Commission for Human Rights and Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) Mr Samuel Frimpong Appiah has said that the country's laws do not debar women from standing surety for suspects in police custody.
He said bail bonds are not immediately paid in cash but are presented in the form of valuable property to serve as an assurance that a suspect would be made available for trial.
Speaking at a forum at Ekumfi Essarkyir as part of activities marking the 10th anniversary of the CHRAJ, Mr Frimpong Appiah cautioned the public against paying monies to police personnel as condition for standing surety for suspects as such practices are dishonest.
He announced that his outfit resolved 610 complaints since the establishment of the office in 1999, about 75 per cent of them being child maintenance cases. He advised women to ensure that their marriages are legalised to enable them to inherit their husbands.
Frimpong Appiah said the interstate succession law (PNDC law 111) was not being enforced vigorously and urged Federation of Women Lawyers (FIDA) and other women groups to intensify education on it to prevent the exploitation of women.
He deplored the dehumanising treatment of women under the guise of widowhood and other outmoded rights.
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Youth Association donates books to school
Abura Wiomuah (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - The Takoradi branch of the Wiomuah Youth Association on Monday presented a quantity of exercise books worth three million cedis to students of the Roman Catholic Junior Secondary School at Wiomuah.
Making the presentation, Nana Andoh, Chairman, said the donation was the Association's contribution towards improving education in the community.
Odziasampa Kofi Dadzie VIII, Chief of Wiomuah, who received the books on behalf of the school thanked the Association for the gesture and appealed to other branches for further support.
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"Stigmatisation is greatest obstacle to fight against AIDS"
Saltpond (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - Ken Appiah, a member of the Board of Directors of the Fed Kastle Promotions, a Saltpond based NGO, has described stigmatisation as the greatest obstacle to the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country.
"Let us treat AIDS patients just as we do to malaria patients or patients of other ailments," he said
Speaking at a workshop organised by the NGO for 30 peer educators at Saltpond, Mr. Appiah said to make people feel free to undergo voluntary tests and to disclose their AIDS status there was the need to assure the victims that they would not be treated as undesirable elements.
Appiah who is domiciled in Botswana, a country where the prevalence rate of the disease was high, said unless Ghanaians changed their attitude towards people living with HIV/AIDS, the huge investments being made by the government and donor agencies in the fight against the disease would not achieve the desired impact.
He said in Botswana, a beauty contest was recently organised for people living with AIDS and said similar activities could be organised for people living with the disease in Ghana.
Appiah said the efforts to curb the spread of the disease were not enough adding that in Botswana, anti-AIDS activities were incorporated in the curricula of the schools churches, markets, work places and in all other facets of human activity.
Nana Kwaa Nkum Kwainoo IV, Nkusukum Banmuhen and President of the NGO urged the government to provide handouts on the disease for distribution to members of the public. Nana Kwainoo urged educational institutions to use part of their religious and moral education periods to educate students on HIV/AIDS.
Frank Baffoe, Vice-President of the organisation commended Miss Christine Antor, a Principal Nursing Officer and Mfantseman District AIDS Co-ordinator who was the resource person at the workshop for the efficient manner in which she treated the subjects.
He advised CBOs and NGOs to recruit experts as resource persons for their workshops to enable the participants to be equipped with the right type of message.
Francis Ejaaku Donoh, Executive Director of the NGO advised the peer educators to embark on house-to-house education of the people on the disease. He said the NGO has decided to institute awards for hard working educators.
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Ajumako District holds forum on investment
Ajumako (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - Kenneth K. Obempong, District Chief Executive for Ajumako-Enyan-Essiam has called on investors to take advantage of the enormous tourism and agricultural potentials in the area to establish industries and other ventures in the district.
He said this would not only ensure the development of the district but also reduce poverty and unemployment and prevent the youth from migrating to the urban centres in search of non-existent jobs.
Obempong was speaking at a forum of stakeholders on Rural Enterprise Development at Ajumako, on Tuesday. He noted that unemployment was very high among the youth while poverty kept rising leading to economic hardships.
The DCE expressed the hope that the stakeholders would fashion out plans to put the district on the road to development. He said the district has vast potentials in tourism and agro-based industries such as palm oil and palm kernel oil extraction as well as citrus production.
Obempong urged investors to take advantage of the relative peace and stability in the area to establish ventures to enable the district to contribute meaningfully to national development.
Yaw Nyarko-Mensah, Chief Industrial Promotion Officer and Director of Small and Medium Enterprises Development of the Ministry of Trade, said under the Rural Enterprises Development Programme every district was to select three priority projects for implementation.
Speaking on behalf of the Deputy Minister of Trade, Industry and the President's Special Initiatives, Hajia Alima Mahama, he urged districts to submit their projects to the Ministry on time.
The stakeholders comprising assembly members, heads of departments, chiefs, business executives, artisans and other opinion leaders later broke into four groups to consider priority projects.
Projects considered were soap manufacturing, carving and beads making, distillery and citrus processing.
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Hackman to contest Gomoa-West NPP primaries
Apam (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - Mr. Joe Kingsley Hackman, a lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), has declared his intention to contest the Gomoa West parliamentary seat on the ticket of the New Patriotic Party in the 2004 general elections.
He has paid the registration fee of five million cedis to enable him to contest the primaries against three other candidates including the District Chief Executive Miss Joyce Aidoo.
Hackman, a 48-year-old Lecturers in Building Technology, holds a Master of Science degree in Construction Management from the South Bank University in London.
He also attended Willesden College of Technology also in London where he read professional studies in Building Technology, Management and Construction Computing. Hackman had a wide range of working experience in Ghana, Nigeria and Holland.
Speaking in Apam, Mr. Hackman said he had decided to contest the seat to offer him the opportunity to articulate the problem facing the Gomoa District, which he described as a deprived area, in Parliament.
He said there were lots of resources in the area, which needed to be tapped and developed to improve the living conditions of the people, adding, "I feel I can do that better when I am in Parliament."
Hackman said he would initiate programmes to improve farming and fishing, which were the two major occupations of the people of the area, adding that over reliance on rain-fed farming was not helping the people much and said the time had come for us to think about other methods of getting water for our farmers.
Hackman said the establishment of cottage industries to create jobs for the youth to stem the rural-urban migration would be given serious attention.
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Public structures should be made accessible to the disabled
Apam (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - The Central Regional Chairman of Ghana Society of the Physically Disabled, Mr. Ransford Mensah has appealed to the government, architects and other public service providers to consider the plight of the disabled in the design and construction of public structures.
Mensah said architectural designing should not be a barrier to the disabled in getting access to public facilities, adding, "how could one expect a cripple to squat on a toilet which has no facility for sitting." He made the appeal at a training workshop for some leaders of the society drawn from Mfantseman and Gomoa Districts at Apam.
The four-day workshop, which was sponsored by the World Bank through its Small Grants Programme was to build the capacity of the leaders to enable them organise themselves to fight for their rights.
Miss Praxides Chisakuta and Cho Ausu, both of the Voluntary Service Overseas (VSOs) were the resource persons at the workshop. They took the participants through The Local Government System, Advocacy and Lobbying Skills, Group Mobilisation, Fund raising Skills among other relevant subject areas.
Robert Mensah, an official of the Gomoa District Education Directorate exhorted head teachers and teachers to discourage school children from making a mockery of physically challenged persons.
He advised parents not to regard disabled persons as witches or wizards but rather help them to integrate fully into society. They should also help disabled persons to lead decent lives.
Miss Joyce Mildred Aidoo, Gomoa District Chief Executive, advised the leadership of the society to discourage members from taking to the streets to beg for alms. She urged them to organise themselves to enable them access some of the poverty reduction interventions to help them establish themselves in gainful ventures.
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NGO trains 300 peer educators for fight AIDS
Ankaful (Central Region) 01 October 2003 - The Fed Kastle Promotions, a Saltpond -based NGO has trained 300 peer educators in 10 communities in the Mfantseman District to fight the spread of HIV/AIDS.
The Ghana AIDS Commission provided funds for the training workshops. The communities were Kormantse, Anomabu, Eshirow, Biriwa, Ewoyaa and Kuntu. The others were Abonko, Nankesedo, Saltpond and Ankaful.
Miss Christine Antor, Principal Nursing Officer and Mfantseman District HIV/AIDS Co-ordinator, who was the resource persons at the workshops took the peer educators through the mode of infection, prevention, management and care for people living with the disease and on how to use both the male and female condoms.
Miss Antor advised the educators to emphasise abstinence from pre-marital sex and faithfulness to ones sexual partner rather than the use of the condom.
She cautioned them against giving wrong information about the disease to the people and urged them to seek clarification from qualified medical personnel when they were faced with problems.
Francis Ejaaku Donkoh, Executive Director of the Fed Kastle Promotions appealed to the Ghana AIDS Commission and the District Assembly to provide some token allowances for peer educators to enable them to do the work effectively.
He said the rate at which the pandemic was spreading called for a concerted effort and devoted service in curbing it and urged the educators to carry the message to the people in their homes, work places and even on vehicles.
Ejaaku Donkoh assured the educators that his organisation would reward those who render dedicated service.
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Religious leaders urged to lead HIV/AIDS campaign
Wa (Upper West Region) 01 October 2003 - Religious leaders have been urged to use their preaching to propagate the negative effects of indiscriminate sex as part of the efforts to control the spread of HIV/AIDS.
Alhaji Zaaidu Tamimu, Upper West Regional Monitoring and Evaluation Focal person on HIV/AIDS, made the call at a workshop organised by the Regional AIDS Control Network for leaders of religious groups at Wa.
He said they would be failing society if they concentrated on issues of life after death to the neglect of the pandemic, which has the potential to wipe out the more active segment of the society.
The workshop served also served as a formal invitation to Faith Based Organisations (BFO) in the region to join the campaign against the disease. The participants were sensitised on the role of religious bodies in fighting HIV/AIDS and strategies to fight the spread of the pandemic.
Alhaji Tamimu urged FBO's to collaborate in the efforts to control the disease since commercial sex was on the rise and wondered whether the people were getting the message on the dangers of such practice or are just refusing to listen.
Mr Stephen Engmen, Special Assistant to the Upper West Regional Minister, called on religious organisations to be more pro-active in anti HIV/AIDS activities. He urged the religious leaders to encourage the people to lead healthy lifestyles.
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Help achieve objectives of REP - Stakeholders told
Kenyasi (Brong Ahafo) 01 October 2003 - Mr Michael Nsiah-Agyapong, Asutifi District Chief Executive, has urged stakeholders in the Rural Enterprises Project (REP) in the district to work with diligence and devotion to achieve the objective of helping the poor to improve their lot.
Addressing the stakeholders at a start-up workshop on the phase two of the project in the district at Kenyasi, the DCE called on them to regard themselves not only as beneficiaries but also as managers of the project to ensure its effective and sustainable implementation and continuity.
The workshop is meant to sensitise all the major stakeholders within the district on the project concept and objectives, implementation guidelines and related institutional arrangements. The stakeholders include District Assembly officials, representatives of trade associations, youth and women's groups, religious organisations and financial institutions.
Nsiah-Agyapong noted that as a poverty reduction programme, the project would help improve the living conditions by assisting women and vulnerable groups to increase their incomes through self-employment.
Apart from increased employment and incomes I also envisage other benefits like economic empowerment of residents, for enhanced family life, education, health and proper environment management, he added.
Nsiah-Agyapong said as a cost-sharing project, the District Assembly had given approval to meet all the financial and material conditions required for the take off of the project.
It has provided an office, an air conditioner, furniture and recruited two staff for the project to operate, he said and appealed to all other stakeholders to be brought on board to mobilise the necessary resources to support and manifest the principle of the project.
Kwasi Attah-Antwi, Project Coordinator, said the workshop, the second in the series under REP 11, was to provide a platform for the stakeholders to interact and brainstorm to generate ideas that would guide the direction of the project.
He stressed that since the project was meant to help the poor to improve their lot, "the people of Asutifi, no matter how poor they are must be seen to be making an effort to get out of their poverty rather than look to someone else to save them".
The project therefore expects a consistency in meeting the minimum requirements from the District Assembly and clients, he said. Attah-Antwi, however, cautioned that the project would not hesitate to withdraw from the district if it became clear that the full co-operation of the Assembly and/or stakeholders including project clients was not forthcoming.
Paul Okoh, MP for Asutifi North, called on members of the District Implementation Committee of the project and the people in the district to offer total commitment and dedication for the success of the project. He emphasized that the overall goal of the REP 11 "is poverty alleviation and improvement in the living conditions in rural areas".
The MP added that the benefits of the project include training of micro and small scale entrepreneurs, graduate apprentice training programme, development of banking culture among small-scale entrepreneurs and knowledge in business skills, among others.
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Sensitisation forum on AIDS held at Akropong-Akuapem
Akropong-Akuapem (Eeastern Region) 01 October 2003 - Traditional healers at a sensitisation forum on HIV/AIDS have challenged the belief that HIV/AIDS is a killer disease and has no cure. They contended that AIDS is just like any of the sexually transmitted diseases such as gonorrhoea, which attacked people in the olden days.
According to them, they have cure for the disease but the problem is how they can obtain an operational licence from the Mampong Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine (CSRIPM) to enable them to administer the cure.
The forum was organised by the Ministry for Women and Children's Affairs (MWCA) and the National Commission on Women and Development (NCWD) at Akropong-Akuapem, to educate the people on the harmful traditional practices and their implications for HIV/AIDS.
Those who participated included queen mothers, traditional healers, teachers and representatives of civil societies in the Eastern Region. The NCWD Executive Director, Mrs Mirian Tackie, said in Ghana, Women between 25 years and 35 years are the most afflicted while the men are between 30 and 39 years.
She said the youth, aged between 15 and 34 years, made up about 55.3 percent and described this as serious since the youth constitute the productive age group and the nation's future. "Let us help our youth to abstain from sex before marriage, or they should use condoms when necessary to protect themselves," she added.
She said poverty at times made the women, particularly, young girls, vulnerable to the disease. Mrs Tackie reiterated the need for women to be educated to acquire skills or a profession for a sustainable livelihood. This would also reduce their dependency on men.
A representative from the National Commission on Culture, Mr Kofi Amoatey, called for the modernisation of traditional practices such as Female Genital Mutilation and widowhood rites, saying this would reduce the HIV infection rate among women and children.
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Rainstorm hits Adoe in Noranza District
Nkoranza (Brong Ahafo) 01 October 2003 - More than 100 persons have been rendered homeless at Adoe, a farming community in the Nkoranza District, following a severe rainstorm that hit the area last Thursday.
The roofs of eight houses were ripped off and property estimated at 20 million cedis destroyed. There were no casualties, Mr Kwame Fosu, Chairman of the Unit Committee told the Ghana News Agency at Nkoranza.
He said a nursing mother, Maame Afia, who got injured by flying roofing sheets was treated at the Saint Theresa's Hospital at Nkoranza and discharged. Fosu appealed to the National Disaster Management Organisation for relief items for the victims who are putting up with friends and relatives.
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440 schools built from HIPC fund nationwide
Bima (Ashanti Region) 01 October 2003 - Osei Kwame Prempeh, MP for Nsuta-Kwamang, said on Tuesday that the government has built 440 classroom blocks nationwide from the HIPC Relief Fund this year.
Inaugurating a school project for the Bima Methodist Primary School at Bima in the Sekyere West District, said the projects executed with the fund has justified the government's decision for embracing the HIPC initiative.
The school, which has an office, a library, store and a staff room, cost 320 million cedis, replaces a dilapidated building constructed in 1948. The MP, who had earlier donated 1,000 exercise books to the school, said he had sponsored 50 students in various secondary schools from his share of the Common Fund.
Thomas Edward Atakora, District Chief Executive, said the Assembly received 1.5 billion cedis from the HIPC Fund, which was used for the construction of a classroom block for the Asaam JSS and an abattoir at Mampong.
The Assembly has also built a three unit classroom block for Asuboaso JSS, a 12-seater aqua-privy toilet at Kwamang and is constructing a dormitory for the Amaniampong Secondary School.
The DCE appealed to the people take the education of their children seriously and said an increased enrolment and proper maintenance of the block would be a condition for the provision of a teachers' bungalow requested by the people.
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Yendi District hit by power failure
Yendi (Northern Region) 01 October 2003 - The Yendi District has been without electricity supply from the national grid for the past four days.
The power outage has affected essential services including operations at the Yendi main water pumping station, small-scale industries, bakers, food vendors and corn millers. Secretarial services at computer and communication centres and Government Departments and agencies have also been affected.
Briefing the Yendi District Chief Executive, Mr Mohammed Tijani, about the situation, the Station Supervisor of the Volta River Authority Sub Station, Mr Ransford Budu, attributed the blackout to a fault in the main transformer.
The transformer also supplies Saboba Chereponi, Gushiegu Karaga, Zabzugu Tatale, Nanumba, Salaga, East Mamprusi and the Kete Krachi Districts. Budu said VRA, as a temporary measure is to tap power direct from Tamale to the affected areas. Tijani appealed to the Authority to expedite work on the transformer.
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Stick to practices to maintain cocoa quality - Chief Farmer
Mampong (Ashanti Region) 01October 2003 - Nana Kwame Amankwatia, Ashanti Regional Chief Farmer, has advised cocoa farmers to stick to traditional practices to maintain the quality of Ghana's cocoa beans.
He said they should ensure that their beans cocoa beans are properly fermented and are thoroughly dry before selling them to Licensed Buying Companies (LBCs). Nana Amankwatia was swearing in the new Mampong-Agona District Chief Farmer and other elected officers of the Ghana Cocoa, Coffee and Sheanut Farmers Association (GCCSFA), at Asante-Mampong.
They are Opanin Joseph Kwabena Obeng, Chief Farmer, Opanin E.K. Gyasi, Deputy Chief Farmer, Mr Kwasi Yamoah, Secretary and Mr Bright Boakye-Ansah, Treasurer.
The Regional Chief Farmer cautioned them that under no circumstance should they allow the competition among the LBCs to capture a higher percentage of the market to undermine the quality of the beans since Ghana enjoys premium for her quality of cocoa.
Nana Amankwatia asked the farmers to cooperate in the operation of the Akuafo Cheque system, saying, "You should accept only the cheque for your cocoa sales". Opanin Obeng appealed to the government to continue its efforts to improve roads in cocoa and food crop growing areas to facilitate the evacuation of farm produce.
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