Mrs Angelina Baiden-Amissah, Deputy Minister of Education, Science and Sports has charged the various branches of the Tertiary Education Students Confederacy (TESCON) of the New Patriotic Party (NPP) to disseminate information about the achievements of the government and the impact of its programmes and polices on the socio-economic lives of the people. She said by so doing they would be preparing a “fertile ground” for NPP parliamentary candidates to ensure that the party retains power in the upcoming general elections. The Deputy Minister said these at a joint inauguration event of the Takoradi Polytechnic and Effia-Nkwanta Nurses Training School ladies’ chapters of TESCON in Takoradi on Saturday. It was on the theme: “The role of women in leadership”. Mrs Baiden-Amissah emphasised the need for TESCON members to work hard to disabuse the minds of the electorate from “political lies, deceptions and intimidations being peddled by our opponents”. Since party politics is all about numbers, she charged TESCON members to intensify their membership drive in the nooks and crannies and encourage the people to register and vote when the time comes. She reminded them that since they were the potential future leaders of the party and the country; they have the onerous duty to work hard to protect and preserve the country’s democracy and all laudable achievements of the party. As students, Mrs Baiden-Amissah advised them to use their time profitably and study hard and eschew negative tendencies, including indiscriminate sex, saying, biologically women were more susceptible to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS and should also pay attention to their reproductive health. She announced that polytechnics were being upgraded in phases to offer university programmes and said two of these institutions in Accra and Ho have been authorised to run first Degree courses. Mrs Baiden-Amissah advised female students to venture into course areas like Mechanical and Electrical Engineering hitherto dominated by men in order to gain equal job opportunities with the male counterparts, adding that a lot more was being done to promote gender parity. Source: GNA