THE ACCRA?Metropolitan?Assembly (AMA) and the?United States?Agency for International Development (USAID) Commission have commissioned the fourth Millennium?School building?at Zamrama Line Cluster of Schools compound at Nasrawa in Accra.
The?new school?is one of the 100 new classroom blocks being built under the Accra Millennium City Schools project.
The new block, with a?library,?computer laboratory, washrooms, science laboratory, staff common room, is one of modern structures to accommodate Primary and?Junior High School?pupils who were left without permanent classroom structures following the abolition of the shift system in the metropolis.
The three-storey?classroom?block is the fourth of four USAID assisted school complexes earmarked for construction on four school compounds in the Greater Accra Region.
Speaking?at the ceremony, the AMA Mayor, Dr. Alfred Okoe Vanderpuije said as part of the Assembly?s efforts to turn Accra into a?millennium?city, it is constructing one hundred (100) of state of the art basic schools.
According to him, the Assembly has completed seven (7) already and eighty five (85) of these schools are at various stages of completion.
Dr. Okoe Vanderpuije also said the assembly has constructed over five hundred classroom blocks as part of measures being put in place to help eradicate the shift system in the Accra metropolis.
He prayed that in the next few years, the assembly through the support of the USAID will construct the remaining 25 classroom blocks.
According to him the AMA has passed the FOAT assessment and has been awarded substantial grant of 10.3 million USD to be used to construct 13 additional Millennium City Schools.
?In order to build the capacity of teachers for effective teaching and learning we have also initiated an external training programme for our teachers at the Benedict College in Columbia, South Carolina, USA. This is to expose them to international best practices for replication in our schools,? he said.
The Minister of Education, Prof. Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang in her address said as part of the partnership between the two countries, Ghana provided 33%?funding?in support of the project.
The Minister further thanked the USA for their support over the years in the area of education and reiterated Ghana?s commitment to ensuring good and?quality education.
Also, the Director of USAID in charge of Education in Washington, Natasha De-Marken stated that child literacy and numeracy?were fundamental to basic education and were also the foundation for developing the productive workforce and economic growth of every country.
She said the USA and Ghana have showed their commitment to improving on education and that his country?s successes in the past ten years informed his government?decision?to support Ghana.
Natasha De-Marken further stated that the USA has made available over US$19.7 million to the?Ministry of Education to construct offices and classroom blocks in all ten regions of the country.
More than 700 students are to begin their studies in a newly built three-story classroom block at Zamrama Line cluster of schools in Laterbiokoshie in Accra.? This 18-unit classroom block will provide sufficient classrooms to allow all students in the schools to access the full day?s period of teaching and learning, and reduce the double shift system within the Accra metropolis.
The U.S. Government through the Agency for International Development (USAID) has partnered with the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) to build the Zamrama Line cluster of schools block and three other 18-unit classroom blocks at Salvation Army in Mamprobi, Kotobabi Abavana, and Okpoti in Dansoman.? USAID provided US$2.3 million for the four classroom blocks.? Part of these funds was used to purchase equipment and tools to maintain the new facilities.
The AMA provided essential counterpart funding, which included the provision of land, geotechnical and geomantic surveys as well as project management, and supervision.
