FIVE UPPER WEST DISTRICTS GET FREE SCHOOL UNIFORMS (BACK PAGE, MAY 8, 2010)

FIVE out of the nine districts in the Upper West Region have so far received their share of the free school uniforms from the government.
They are the Lambussie Karni, Nadowli, Jirapa, Wa East and Wa West districts.
At a brief ceremony at the forecourt of the Upper West Regional Co-ordinating Council to present the materials to the districts, the Regional Director of Education, Mr Fabian Belieb, said each of the districts was given 2,000 pieces of the materials.
He appealed to tailors and seamstresses who would have the opportunity to sew the uniforms to do a good job.
The Regional Minister, Mr Mahmud Khalid, said it was the desire of the government to recognise the efforts of local artisans, hence the directive that the uniforms be sewn by the local people.
He noted that it was the first phase of contracting the services of local tailors and seamstresses to sew the free school uniforms and advised them to live up to expectation in order to sustain the confidence that had been reposed in them.
“This is a challenge to our tailors and seamstresses to prove their worth and I expect DCEs to monitor and ensure value for money,” the minister added.
He charged DCEs to ensure that the uniforms went to needy pupils, pointing out that “we cannot fail and so we must all be responsive”.
Mr Khalid said giving out free school uniforms, increasing the capitation grant, among other interventions, were all tenets of good governance which should convince people to see politics as satisfying the needs of the people and not mere rhetoric.
He added that the desire for free education could not be realised if parents could not afford school uniforms for their children.
On what was being done to improve school infrastructure in the region, Mr Khalid explained that tenders for contracts and the construction of schools blocks to replace schools under trees had opened.