Mr. Mark Woyongo, Upper East Regional Minister, at the weekend called on Ghanaians to consider education as a vital for national development. He noted that currently, great nations were not those with military might nor endowed with minerals, forest or marine resources but those with highly educated, skilled and creative human potentials. Mr. Woyongo was addressing a durbar of chiefs and people of the Navrongo Traditional area, to mark their annual Fao festival to thank God and the ancestors for a successful farming season and peaceful year. The celebration that was on the theme: “Growing a culturally perceptive youth for Navrongo’s development” also aimed at mobilizing the people for development. Mr Woyongo said government was obliged to provide appropriate education and training for children and the youth and also committed to addressing the infrastructural deficit of the country. He noted that the region had benefited from more than 150 school infrastructural projects, including the building of classrooms, dormitories, assembly halls, laboratories as well as teacher accommodation, and indicated that the Kassena-Nankana East District had benefited from those packages. Mr. Woyongo said apart from the conversion of a number of schools under trees into well structured classroom blocks, 2,150,000 exercise books, 33,353 school uniforms and 150 laptop computers were distributed to school children in the region. He asked parents to take advantage of Government’s interventions and send their children to school. Mr. Woyongo said he has established an educational endowment fund for brilliant but needy children in the district and appealed to well-meaning citizens of the area to contribute to the fund. He said registration for the National Health Insurance Scheme had increased from 60 per cent in 2008 to more than 80 per cent in 2010. Mr Woyongo said Government would establish ambulance service centres in Garu, Navrongo and Sandema to help reduce maternal mortality and child mortality in the region. He said Government has announced the upgrading of the Kassena-Nankana East District into a Municipality to promote democracy and decentralization and to facilitate development in the area. He appealed to the youth to join the campaign to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS in the country. The acting Navro-Pio Wekem Arthur Balinia Adda, called on the people to promote the heritage, history and culture of the Navrongo Traditional Area. He said the Navrongo culture upholds the values of respect, integrity, transparency and promotes the people’s heritage and reminds them that they are of common descent and identity. Navro-Pio Adda lamented the low standards of education in the area and called for an urgent need to change the trend. He said the Navrongo Traditional Council would support measures aimed at improving the teaching and learning in the area. Navro-Pio Adda appealed to politicians to be circumspect in their electioneering to preserve country’s peace and said “We must not allow elections to divide us and create disunity in our society”.