Government on course to eradicating schools under trees
Accra, Feb. 17, 2012
President John Evans Atta Mills yesterday, in his state of the nation address to Parliament said government is on course to eradicating the schools under trees phenomenon.
According to him, contracts for the construction of over 1,700 classroom blocks for schools under trees have been awarded throughout the country.
He said on completion, “The 4,320 schools under trees that existed in 2009 would be reduced by about 40%.”
According to President Mills, government’s achievements in managing inflation, budget deficit and realizing high GDP growth rates have reflected in the progress made in many key areas of national development including the education sector.
“In the city of Accra for example efforts have been made to bring an end to the school shift system which has been a drawback in the fight for quality education,” he noted.
He said several classroom structures had been constructed providing accommodation for hundreds of pupils who are now benefitting from a full day classroom teaching.
According to the President, government has distributed over 3 million school uniforms to needy pupils nationwide.
“This means that with a basic school population of about 5.2 million, we have supplied school uniforms to three out of every five children in basic school,” he added.
“Under our free exercise books scheme, over 40 million exercise books have been supplied to all pupils in basic public schools. On the average, 8 exercise books have been supplied to each pupil per year in both 2010 and 2011.”
President Mills said coverage of the national school feeding programme had also been expanded to more needy communities.
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