MP initiates Kindergarten project in rural communities
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Okere, Mr Dan Kwaku Botwe, has provided facilities for children in kindergartens in rural communities who walk more than seven kilometres to and from school in adjoining communities each day.
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Awukugua-Nyensi, Aboa, Nyensi-Camp, Onyamebekyere, Gyan-Kwakye, Otareso, Asifaw-South and Okyerekrom are satellite communities within the seven major towns on the Akuapem Ridge that make up the Okere Constituency.
Some students who have completed senior high school had been contracted by the beneficiary communities to teach at the kindergartens and arrangements had been made by the MP to pay them allowance from his share of the Common Fund until such time that the Ghana Education Service (GES) would absorb the schools into the public system.
This came to light when the MP and Minister designate for Regional Re-organisation and Special Projects met with leaders of one of the beneficiary communities at Nyensi-Camp to finalise arrangements for the school’s operation.
He donated GH¢200 to a three-man committee made up of a parent, a teacher and the Odikro to open an account for the school so that money for running the school would be paid into it.
Mr Botwe said the rationale was to make the Free Compulsory Universal Basic Education (FCUBE) realistic to all children, irrespective of their background, to ensure that the gap between children in the rural and urban areas was bridged.
Kindergarten projects
The MP said he had notified the GES of the kindergarten projects meant to bring education to the doorstep of the rural communities and expressed the hope that in due course it would be absorbed into the mainstream basic schools.
He said because the basic schools in those communities were situated far away and pupils had to trek about seven kilometres each day, children of school age, between four and seven, were not going to school.
Mr Botwe said he was unhappy to see many children loitering in the communities because they could not walk the long distances to attend school in the adjoining communities and their mothers could not also accompany them every day.
He gave a hint that as part of measures to motivate parents to send their children to the kindergarten, he was considering serving meals to the children in all the kindergartens until such a time that the GES would take over and possibly link them to the school feeding programme.
Mr Botwe urged the community leaders and the three-member committee to own the school and ensure that the objective for setting up the kindergarten within their communities was realised to improve upon the standard of education in the area.
An elated parent, Rose Owusu, who spoke on behalf of the community, commended the MP for his gesture, saying many children went to school late and even refused going to school totally because of the long distances they had to trek.
