The free school uniforms for one million basic school pupils which were promised by the government in this year's budget are to be ready for distribution from September when the 2009/2010 academic year begins. "Our target is the next academic year. We are looking at between September and December for the distribution," the Minister of Education, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo, told the Daily Graphic after inaugurating boards and councils of five agencies under the ministry. He said guidelines for the distribution of the uniforms were being developed. The provision of the free uniforms was contained in the 2009 budget statement delivered by the Minister of Finance and Economic Planning, Dr Kwabena Dufuor. The initiative is to benefit pupils from deprived communities as part of efforts to relieve the burden on their parents and encourage attendance in schools. Mr Tettey-Enyo said the government, apart from increasing access to school, was committed to the provision of infrastructure, motivation for teachers and improvement of the sector. On the recent forum to discuss the duration of the Senior High School (SHS) programme, he said the ministry was packaging the outcome for the attention of the cabinet. Meanwhile, the Executive Director of Child Rights International, Mr Bright Appiah, has described the move as good, "as it will ensure equity and greater access to education". "The criteria for selection of beneficiaries will be key because the gap between those in the urban and the rural areas is too big," he stated. He expressed the hope that the government would link the programme to already existing programmes such as the elimination of child labour, the school feeding programme and the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) to know the extent to which they were making impact in the various communities. Mr Appiah, who is the Chairman of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), suggested that the free uniform initiative should be implemented alongside the sensitization and education of parents and guardians on the need to live up to their responsibilities. In a related development, Mr Alex Tettey-Enyo left Accra last night to attend the Commonwealth Education Ministers Conference in Kualar Lumpur, Malaysia. The Head of the Public Relations Unit at the Ministry of Education, Mr Paul Krampah, said the minister was accompanied by Mr Charles Tsegah, the Director of the Projects, Buget, Monitoring and Evaluation (PMBE) Division of the ministry. Issues aimed at improving education are key on the agenda of the conference.