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Traditional authorities have been urged to play leading roles in bringing quality education to their communities and to champion the education of the deprived child. This would fall in line with a new educational programme under the Class One Project, which is a complementary basic education project and aims to bring functional literacy to children to enable them to integrate into the formal school system or for self development. Mr Niagia Santuah, Director of the Project, made the call when he launched it on Friday at Katiu in the Kassena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region. The Class One Project is being implemented by Roots and Futures, a non-governmental organization based in Chiana, near Navrongo, and supported by School for Life, a Danish Programme based in Tamale. It is to maximize the use of local resources and resourcefulness for sustainable development of the people. Mr Santuah announced that GH�18,000 has been allocated for the training of facilitators and the securing of logistics for the smooth running of the Project. He said the Class One Project was important because the formal school system had failed many children as it did not reach out to all at the right age and that called for another direction to enable children who did not have the chance to go through formal education to benefit from the Project. Mr Santua explained that the project covered numeracy and literacy skills and would help school children aged between eight to fourteen years to integrate into the formal school system or develop themselves in other ways. He said the Project was looking at offering education that had immediate and direct benefits to parents and children so as to permanently change the attitude of parents towards education and also to provide practical evidence to help to shape national policy on complementary basic education. Presenting bicycles, bags, and chalk boards to eleven facilitators, the Regent of Chiana, Mr Innocent Kworatu Ayagitam entreated the facilitators to make good use of the items and to preserve them for others to also benefit. The Regent called on parents to devote quality time to the up-bringing of their children. He said there would not be a future if children were not given the right training. The Paramount Chief of Nakong Traditional Area, Pe Joseph Banapeh Afagachie II called on Chiefs as development partners, to champion the well-being of their people, saying that "they should be seen to be mobilizing their people for self-help projects". Pe Banapeh Afagachie noted that to achieve excellence in education, traditional leaders must partner actively and effectively with other stakeholders such as Ghana Education Service and nongovernmental organizations. He identified some of the challenges facing the educational system in the District to include inadequate classroom accommodation; poor staffing and pupils' absenteeism; teachers and pupils reporting to school late; using the children on the farms during the farming season and poor attendance at parent-teacher association meetings. He said those challenges were militating against the development of the area and called on development partners and political leaders to come to the aid of the area. Addressing the gathering, the Deputy District Coordinating Director, Mr Ibrahim Al-Hassan said the fundamental strategies of the Assembly for improving education in the district was the provision of basic educational infrastructure, the construction of new classroom blocks and rehabilitation of existing ones. He gave the assurance that the Assembly was committed to supporting any development partner that wished to invest in the area.