Annual report on the Gold Coast / Colonial Office.

  • Great Britain. Colonial Office.
Date:
[1951]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Annual report on the Gold Coast / Colonial Office. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/130 (page 7)
    progress of the work, at present seriously in arrears, of constituting forest reserves, now that three full-time Reserve Settlement Com¬ missioners have been appointed. The Legislative Assembly has also approved an Accelerated Development Plan for Education, the main features of which are the provision as soon as possible of a six-year basic course of primary education for all children entirely at public expense ; the renaming of senior primary schools as “middle schools” with an eventual change of their functions ; the provision of 15 new secondary day schools, and a very early increase of teacher-training facilities. The University College of the Gold Coast continued to expand and 340 undergradu¬ ates were in residence at the beginning of the 1951 academic year. Work was started and is proceeding rapidly on the University College’s permanent buildings. Work is also going ahead on the premises of the new Kumasi College of Technology. The Government Teacher- Training College which used to be at Achimota has now been trans¬ ferred to the site and has become a department of the new College of Technology. Other courses will be started in 1952. The mass education teams had an active year and plans were com¬ pleted for introducing mass education into the Northern Territories and for the production of literature in Northern Territories vernaculars. Community development activities continued to receive enthusiastic support and a vast number of minor but useful projects were carried out during the year. In the field of medicine two new District Hospitals—at Hohoe and Bolgatanga—were constructed during the year and will be opened early in 1952 and there has been a very satisfactory increase in the number of Medical Officers in the country. The specialist grades however remain greatly under strength. A Commission has been appointed but had not started work by the end of the year to make a detailed review of the health needs of the Gold Coast. There was a general improvement in water supplies, both urban and rural, except in Tamale where drought prevailed and emergency measures had to be introduced, involving the transport of water by lorry from considerable distances, when the level of the town reser¬ voirs fell below the danger point and the supply eventually failed. The shortage of professional and technical staff in some departments —especially in the Public Works and Electricity Departments—became more serious and constituted a very real limiting factor in the progress of development plans. OTHER EVENTS AND VISITORS The Gold Coast provided an impressive exhibit at the Imperial Institute in London for the Festival of Britain : this exhibit was favourably commented on in the United Kingdom press. The Gold Coast also lent a number of exhibits to the Exhibition of Traditional Art from the Colonies. Four members of the Legislative Assembly visited the United Kingdom for the Festival of Britain as guests of