Mrs Agnes Sakyi-Djan, Head Teacher, Donkokrom Presbyterian Primary and Junior High School has lauded UNICEF Ghana and Jacob Foundation for providing hot tea beverage every morning for pre-school children of the school.
She said the project, which began in October 2023, was part of the ‘Community of Excellence Project’, being implemented in the Kwahu Afram Plains North District of the Eastern Region by The Jacobs Foundation and UNICEF Ghana in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES).
She reiterated that the hot tea beverage every morning programme, being provided for Kindergarten (KG) One and Two pupils of the school, had led to 70 per cent enrollment increase.
She said the two classes used to have a population of 16 and 18 pupils, however, following the take off the hot tea beverage every morning programme in October 2023, their population was now 65.
‘Usually, majority of the students do not come to school early but now because of the hot tea, they do come to school early to enjoy their hot
tea,’ Mrs Sakyi-Djan stated in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Donkokrom during a working visit by UNICEF Ghana to project sites in Donkokrom in the Afram Plains North District of the Eastern Region.
The UNICEF delegation, which is on a three-day project working visit to project sites in the Kwahu Afram Plains is being led by Mrs Offeibea Baddoo, Communication Specialist, UNICEF Ghana and Dr Tillmann L. Guenther, an Education Specialist, UNICEF Ghana.
Mrs Sakyi-Djan said the Donkokrom Presbyterian School, which was established in 1940, had so many students passing through it over the years and that currently it was having a population of 360 students, which consist of 160 were boys and 200 girls.
Touching on the invasion of the school’s premises by traders on Donkokrom Market Days, Mrs Sakyi-Djan said with the help of the GES, the Afram Plains North District Assembly and the Ghana Police Service, the issue was now outdated.
Saying: ‘Market women no longer intrude into the School’s Compound to s
ell things’.
She said plans were now underway for the construction of a fence wall around the school’s premises.
Mr Solomon Azubila, Education Director, Kwahu Aframs Plains North District, who was full of praise for the Jacob Foundation and UNICEF Ghana, said the ‘Community of Excellence Project’ was a pilot project that seeks to improve the standards of education in the District by collaborating with stakeholders to find innovative ways to promote teaching and learning, and child development in the communities.
He said the provision of hot tea beverage for KG One and Two pupils in the Donkokrom Presbyterian Primary and JHS, would soon be scaled-up to Primary One to Three, as part of effort to increase enrollment.
The Jacobs Foundation is a Swiss based organization devoted to promoting child and youth development all over the world.
UNICEF Ghana in 2022, received funding from The Jacobs Foundation, a Zurich based philanthropic organization that promotes quality education for every child. The Foundation p
romotes quality education, and it currently finances projects in Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, and Colombia.
The Foundation provided $2.3m to UNICEF Ghana to co-create two projects that promote quality education with education stakeholders and community members in Kwahu Afram Plains North of the Eastern Region and Builsa North Municipality of the Upper East Region.
The project started in June 2022 and will end in November 2024.
Its implementation is led by the Ghana Education Service (GES) District and Municipal Education Directorates in both districts with support from GES Headquarters.
Source: Ghana News Agency