FREEE SCHOOL BAGS FOR ASUTIFI PUPILS (PAGE 11)

TWO thousand pupils from six selected basic schools in the Asutifi District of the Brong Ahafo Region have been presented with school bags, known as “blue packs” which contain learning materials such as pencils and exercise books, totalling GH¢10,000.
The beneficiary children attend the Kenyasi Number One Presbyterian Basic, Kodiwohia D/A Basic, Kenyasi Number Two RC Basic and Kwakyekrom D/A Basic Schools.
Newmont Ghana Gold Limited (NGGL), operating the Ahafo Mine in the Brong Ahafo Region, in collaboration with Academy for Education and Management organised the ceremony at Kenyasi with the aim to assist in the improvement of teaching and learning in those basic schools.
Making the presentation, the General Manager, Environment and Social Responsibility of NGGL, Mr Michealsen, said developing people in pursuit of excellence was a core corporate value of the company.
He said the company also applied that principle to the communities in which it operated.
He explained that the donation formed part of a three-year collaboration venture between Newmont and AED, under which the company was offering a total of $54,000 to support the pupils in the selected schools in the area.
He asked the children to remember the parable in the Bible that talks about using talents, and that, “if you work hard and put the tool to good use, you will be the better for it, but if you let them idle and consider them as additional toys, you will have only yourselves to blame. It is time to work hard to make yourselves and your parents proud”.
Mr Michaelsen urged the teachers and parents to jointly nurture and inspire the children for adult life, saying that the quality of their adult life depended to a very large extent on how they delivered on their responsibility to them.
The Executive Director of AED, Mr Stephen Yaw Manu, noted with satisfaction that with the variety of instructional materials supplied to teachers and pupils as well as the availability of teachers and the continuing support by parents and the communities, the standard of education in those six schools had improved.
He charged teachers and parents to impress upon their wards to attend school every day.