Spio-Garbrah leads Ghana’s delegation to UNESCO
Parental pressure spells family doom
Every Ghanaian owes 400,000 cedis
Exam fraud...4 teachers, 9 others grabbed
Chief’s supporters held captive by opposing group
The Minister of Education, Mr Ekwow Spio-Garbrah, left Accra last week as head of Ghana’s delegation to the 150th Executive Board meeting of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Paris, France, reports the High Street Journal in a front page story.
The paper says Ghana’s delegation. along with other delegates of the 58-member Executive Board, will deliberate on global strategies for eradicating illiteracy and poverty and evolving effective policies for the implementation of "Education for the 21st Century", UNESCO activities in member states as well as other important aspects of its operations.
The Executive Board is the governing body of the organisation, which is responsible overseeing the implementation of UNESCO programmes and activities.
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The Free Press in a front-page lead story reports that a 20-year-old son of a medical doctor at the Koforidua St. Joseph’s Catholic hospital in the Eastern Region, last Thursday, May 27, decided to take his own life because he failed twice to score grades which would enable him to enter the university to study medicine the profession dear to his heart.
The story says for Victor Nartey, former student of Pope John Senior Secondary School at Koforidua, his inability to get the requirements to write the pre-university entrance examination, after two sittings, even though he could enter any other tertiary institution, was enough justification to shoot himself through the heart.
According to the Free Press, to Nartey, aggregate 25 each for the two sittings, was much of a disgrace so the best way out was to commit suicide. The paper says the body has since been deposited at the Koforidua Central Hospital while police investigations into the incident continue. Quoting family sources,
Nartey completed senior secondary school in 1997 with aggregate 25. and parental pressure had forced him to do medicine but he did not qualify with the aggregate. His parents, the paper says, insisted that he should sit again in 1998 to better his grades Again, he had aggregate 25.
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According to the paper, on the average every Ghanaian, including day-old babies, will be called upon to pay more than 400,000 cedis for the huge loans contracted by the Rawlings administration.
The Weekly Insight quoting Deputy Minister of Finance, Mr Moses Asaga, says Ghana’s total external debt alone stood at 5.8 billion dollars as at December, last year.
The paper says if it is estimated that Ghana’s population is 18 million, then n the average, every Ghanaian could owe between 400,000 cedis and one million cedis, especially when the internal debt is factored into the equation The Weekly Insight says borrowing from commercial and. export credit sources accounted for 12 per cent of the indebtedness.
Mr Asaga is reported as saying that the government has established a considerable reputation for timely debt-servicing which has provided it with the high record of credit-worthiness and access to credit and commercial financing for the growing private sector.
Mr Asaga, the paper says stated that to ensure that the national debt remains sustainable in the next century,
Ghana ought to exploit to the maximum, recent innovations in debt relief without depriving or reducing access to commercial financing for the private sector.
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Thirteen people including four teachers, have been arrested for alleged impersonation in the on-going General Certificate of Education (GCE) Ordinary Level examination at Wa and Bolgantaga in the Upper West and Upper East Regions respectively, reports the Graphic in its lead story.
The paper says officials of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC) arrested seven people at Wa while at Bolgatanga four teachers and two students were nabbed. According to the paper, the seven people who have been handed over to the Wa Police for interrogations are: Issah Salia, Issah Salifu, Damata Luri Fuseini Doris, Luri Fuseina Dorothy, Mahama Adamuand Mahama Adamu Bakari.
The police, the Graphic says, have mounted a search for their three accomplices who are on the run. They are: Issifu Dramani. Sanni Sabiru and Sanni Sabutu.
The Graphic quotes Mr Peter Banguu Mwale Ekellah, Wa Branch Controller of WAEC as saying the suspects, who had hatched a plan to cheat during the examination, used similar names for which reason their index numbers followed each other.
He said in the course of the examination, WAEC officials who became suspicious that five of the 10 suspects were writing for the other five, therefore alerted the invigilators to keep an eye on them. Quoting Mr
Ekellah the Graphic says when the time for the examination was over, the WAEC officials detected that each of the 10 suspects wrote different names and index numbers on their answer sheets and when the were challenged,
they could not give any tangible answer. They were consequently arrested and handed over to the police.
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In a front page story, the Ghanaian Times reports that a reception organised on Monday in the house of Nana Nyarko Boateng II, the newly-installed Obohene and the Right Wing chief of Kwahu Traditional Area in the Eastern Region, to climax is installation, ended in confusion.
The guests were held captive by a group opposed to the chief, and the police had to intervene to secure their release.
The paper says not along after his installation, Nana Boateng decided to entertain his people and other invited guests who took part in the programme. The Times says at the reception, they were met by a hostile group believed to be supporters of Osabarima Yeboah Afari Boagyan, Aduanamanhene of the traditional area.
The group was said to have held Nana Boateng’s supporters captive in the house where the reception took place.
Quoting sources at Obo, the Times says the guests travelled from Abene, the seat of the Kwahu paramountcy, to Obo for the reception after the installation of 58-year-old Nana Boateng, and at the outskirts of Obo, the guests found the road blocked and being manned by the opposing group.
A member of the group is said to have given a warning shot, but the guests managed to dismantle the barrier and passed through in a convoy to Nana Boateng’s house.
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