3 Hygiene schools receive lab, office equipment
Three schools of hygiene have received laboratory and office equipment to facilitate practical lessons and administrative processes.
The beneficiary institutions are the Accra, Ho and Tamale schools of hygiene.
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The items (valued at $110,246) were donated under the Greater Accra Sanitation and Livelihoods Improvement Project (GASSLIP).
The about 3,546 pieces of laboratory equipment included magnetic filters, forceps, glass pipette and bulbs, spatula, stirring rod and conical flask.
Others are wash bottles, glass funnels, volumetric flask, test tube holders, test tubes, measuring cylinders, screw cap and plastic containers.
The office equipment comprised a multi-functional photocopier, all-in-one colour printers and projectors.
The Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources, Cecilia Abena Dapaah, presented the items to the schools at a ceremony in Accra yesterday[August 24,2022].
She said given that the students were an integral part of the plan to improve hygiene and sanitation in the country, it was important to give them the training they required so that they would be able to effectively and efficiently deliver when they eventually graduated and were deployed.
She noted that continuous learning was part of institutional strengthening and the best form was aided by practical items and stimulation in the laboratory.
Ms Dapaah encouraged the students to make good use of the equipment and urged the management of the schools to maintain the items well.
She also stated that more support would be given to the institutions to further facilitate their work and enhance practical teaching and learning.
“We are also considering getting vehicles for field work so that the students will be able to collaborate with other like-institutions,” she added.
Tooling
The Principal of the Accra School of Hygiene, Smile Kobina Ametsi, expressed appreciation to the minister for the items and explained that since 2017, when the three schools of hygiene were placed under the ministry, they had received different forms of support, including the payment of trainee allowance by the ministry, which had contributed to the increase in student intake in the past two years.
The ministry, he said, had also constructed a three-storey, nine-unit classroom block and office infrastructure for the Accra School of Hygiene, a new hostel block for the Ho School of Hygiene, while a dormitory block, a dining hall and the kitchen at the Tamale School of Hygiene had been renovated.
Mr Ametsi explained that the schools were committed to positioning themselves to continue to support the goals of the ministry to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 6 of the United Nations.
“We are doing this through training and capacity building by streamlining the intake into various programmes and designing courses to address the needs of the various agencies, roll out the relevant educational programmes in Environmental Health,
Occupational Health and Safety and Occupational Therapy,” he said and added that that would ensure the availability of adequate qualified teaching and non-teaching staff, ensure adequate physical infrastructure and safe environment that nurtured learning for all, regardless of background or disability status.