Accra - President Jerry John Rawlings has asked the private sector to complement the Government's efforts at funding education.
He commended PTA's and old students of various educational institutions in providing assistance in cost-sharing and suggested that these singular efforts should be supplemented by the private sector.
The President was addressing the speech and Prize Giving Day to climax the 50th anniversary of the founding of Prempeh College in Kumasi, on December 4. Rawlings confirmed the realities of constraints on the economy which unavoidable constraints he attributed to global economic trends.
"It is a reality that government resources are severely limited" he confessed. He said the government was neither complacent with the constraints nor insensitive to the plight of students.
Rawlings assured that following the passionate discussion of problems confronting education in the country, the Ministry of Education would seriously consider suggestions made and formulate appropriate policies for consideration and implementation.
He commended the Asantehene Otumfuo Osei Tutu II for his initiatives at enhancing education in Ashanti. The President also advised students to rise up to on-going educational reforms because no amount of academic levels would benefit society without a strong tenacity of purpose.
The Minister of Education, Mr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah noted that development depended on the quality of human resources and urged the youth to take education seriously in order to brace up the challenges of the next millennium.
He hinted that the global economy in the next century would be knowledge based. The Education Minister further disclosed that the government was considering setting up Infotech Centres in schools.
Spio-Garbrah also said two Voctech Centres would be opened in each of the 10 districts to upgrade skills and knowledge of the youth to meet the challenges ahead.
The National President of the Prempeh College Old Students' Association, Dr. E. Osei Kofi appealed to the Methodist and Presbyterian churches as the two major stakeholders in the school to give the idea of a joint establishment of a university on the premises of Prempeh College "a very meditating consideration".
He noted that it would be worthwhile if the two churches pooled resources and came together in their efforts at establishing one university rather than go solo.
Osei Kofi also pleaded with the two churches to consider providing the college with a befitting protestant chapel to boost the status of Prempeh College as a practical Christian institute. This chapel he said, would be regarded as the millennium birthday present.
