Member of Parliament for Gomoa West, Richard Gyan Mensah, has supported over one hundred tertiary students within the Gomoa West district with a thousand cedis each to cater to their books and other stationery needs at school.
According to the MP, the donation is part of his commitment to alleviating the hardships faced by students and their caregivers.
After the donation, the MP urged the beneficiaries to use the funds judiciously to improve their academic work. “I met the students today to support them with money for their book allowance at school. This is to cushion them, and this is something that I have been doing for years,” the MP said.
The MP, who has made education one of his main focuses for his constituency, has also organized educational tours for students and schools in his constituency in the past.
The MP, also in the past supported some other students of the Gomoa West District Science and Maths Quiz, in schools from Apam Methodist C, Greater Grace Christian Mission, Kokofu D/A Basic, and Abrekum D/A.
They visited the Department of Biochemistry, Cell, and Molecular Biology at the University of Ghana and the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission.
Other sites visited included the Natural Product and Microbiology Laboratory, Cancer Research and Virology Laboratory, Molecular Biology Laboratory, and Malaria Research Laboratory.
At the donation event over the weekend, the Gomoa West District Education Directorate expressed concern about the high teacher attrition rate in the district.
According to the Director of Education for the Gomoa District Cecilia Aboagye, the directorate is facing a shortage of over 350 teachers at the basic level, which is impacting the district’s performance in the Basic Education Certificate Examination.
“We are experiencing a shortage of teachers within the district, and this is affecting our performance in the BECE. This year alone, about fifty teachers have applied for leave. You can go to one school, and the entire teacher population for the basic school is just three or, in some instances, four. We need about three hundred and fifty teachers in total to augment the existing teacher population. There are many challenges that can be attributed to this: the area is not economically viable, the bad nature of the roads, and the lack of decent accommodation are all factors,” Cecelia Aboagye, Director of Education for the District, told Channelone News.
On his part, Richard Gyan Mensah assured the directorate of his efforts to address the trend. “I have made several appeals for the Ghana Education Service to ensure that we get teachers. They have written back with promises of support. But for now, I have appealed to the university students within the district to support by choosing Gomoa West as an area for their National Service,” Richard Gyan Mensah noted.
