Madam Justina Owusu-Banahene, the Bono Regional Minister, has reiterated the government’s commitment to addressing the challenges in the educational sector.
She said the government’s commitment to ensuring better education for all was well-manifested in the great strides made to provide Free Senior High School (FSHS) to the adolescent and youthful population.
Mad Owusu-Banahene was speaking at the launch of the 10th-anniversary celebration of the University of Energy and Natural Resource (UENR) on the theme: “A Decade of Academic Excellence in Energy and Natural Resources Education: Commemorating the Past, Celebrating the Present and Shaping the Future for National Development.”
She said secondary education was no longer a privilege, but the right of every Ghanaian child irrespective of the economic status of his/her parents to give them the much-needed knowledge and enlightenment to meet the demands of society.
Mad. Owusu-Banahene said before the graduation of the first batch of the FSHS students, the government started to expand some facilities in tertiary institutions and completed most of the ongoing GETFund projects dotted across the country.
This, she explained, was to increase the capacity of the tertiary institutions to absorb the increased number of FSHS graduates.
The Regional Minister said the phenomenal increase in students’ population was because of the rising number of UENR’s schools from two to seven, and its academic programmes from four to more than 40, adding that “this could not have been achieved on a silver platter but by dint of hard work, vision and persistence.”
She, therefore, congratulated the Management and Governing Council of UENR, both past and present, for their tremendous work done by ensuring a steady growth of students’ intake from 154 in 2012 to over 10,000 in 2022.
Mad Owusu-Banahene said the presence of the University was a blessing to the Bono Region because residents of Sunyani could attest to the fact that the influx of tertiary students in the ‘city’ had brought brisk economic activity and accelerated infrastructural expansion by private estate developers.
Professor Elvis Asare-Bediako, the Vice-Chancellor, expressed gratitude to both current and past Governing Councils of the University, staff and students for the progress made, saying without their support UENR would not have come this far.
GNA