Students admitted, but without tools

Nalerigu(N/R),Oct.20, GNA - The Nalerigu Youth Development Centre in the East Mamprusi district inaugurated last year, has admitted its first batch of 120 students to learn vocational skills but without learning aids and teaching equipment.

The two-storey building renovated at a cost of about one billion cedis from the HIPC funds, is to train students in carpentry and joinery, dressmaking, masonry, electrical engineering, fashion designing, agricultural engineering and secretarial courses.

Students of the centre raised these concerns when Alhaji Abubakar Saddique Boniface, Northern Regional Minister, paid a-day's working visit to the centre on Wednesday.

Alhaji Boniface is on a two-day tour of the East Mamprusi and Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo districts to inspect development projects and acquaint himself with the situation in rural communities.

The students complained of lack of textbooks, accommodation, agriculture equipment,a vehicle, inadequate teaching staff and called on the Government to help address the problems to realize objectives of the centre.

They noted that, the centre was the only major skills training school in the Region, therefore, it was necessary to adopt useful measures to improve its facilities to motivate students to enrol for training.

Mrs Mariam Ibrahim, a tutor of the Fashion and Design department said, lack of required equipment such as tables, scissors and dressing mirrors was making it difficult for students to undertake the practical aspects of the training.

The Regional Minister assured the students that their concerns would be communicated to the appropriate authorities for redress.

He pledged the Government's commitment to infrastructure development particularly improving education, health and other facilities in the rural areas to reduce the rate of unemployment in the country. Alhaji Boniface also inaugurated a Day Care centre at Langbinsi, a farming community near Gambaga and inspected the progress of work on a-23-kilometer road network from Nagboo Jawani-Tuni.

The project is being financed under the DANIDA Transport Support Programme at a cost of about 2.3 billion cedis.