10 million exercise books for basic schools

The government is to distribute about 10 million exercise books to basic school pupils in the country this year.

In addition, 10,000 school uniforms are to be provided to needy pupils.

Last year, 32 million exercise books were distributed to 4,768,806 pupils in basic schools across Ghana while 170,221 pupils in selected deprived communities benefited from the free uniforms policy.

According to the 2014 budget statement, government would provide Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) subsidy for over 403,000 final-year junior high school (JHS) pupils who will sit for the 2014 BECE.

The 2014 budget statement further indicated that the Ministry of Education was also expected to increase enrolment in senior high schools (SHS) from 770,925 to 786,344.

“This will be achieved through interventions such as the provision of subsidies for over 780,000 SHS students,” it said.  

On enrolment at the basic level, the statement said, the number of pupils had increased from 1.4 million to 1.6 million in kindergarten while those in primary school were currently 4.1 million from 3.9 million, adding that JHS students were 1.4 million as against 1.3 million in the past.

To increase teachers at the basic level, 12,000 pupil teachers were also enrolled under the Untrained Teacher Diploma in Basic Education Programme last year.

In addition, in-service education and training was organised for 3,086 KG teachers, 13,264 primary school teachers and 6,534 JHS teachers. 

A total of 12.5 million English, Mathematics and Science textbooks were also procured and distributed to public primary and junior high schools last year.