Mr. Mahmud Khalid, the Upper West Regional Minister, has urged parents not to shun responsibilities under the pretext of poverty to deny their children education.
He said many parents had used poverty as a tool to deny brilliant children the opportunity to get education.
Mr. Khalid was addressing students, staff and parents of the Queen of Peace Senior High School at its 10th anniversary celebrations at Nadowli on Saturday.
The anniversary was on the theme: "Discipline, morality and academic excellence: The tenets of catholic education, the gateway to responsible leadership".
Mr. Khalid appealed to parents to work hard to support their children's education, saying education was the greatest asset parents could give their children.
Mr. Khalid said government would ensure that all senior high schools were provided with adequate infrastructure and qualified teachers to help produce the manpower requirements of the country.
The Catholic Bishop of Wa, Most Rev. Paul Bemile, urged government to factor in the school feeding grants for senior high schools in the north into the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority to enhance academic performance.
"The perennial delays in the payment of the grants to cater for students has been of concern to many parents and school authorities as that
contributes to poor academic performance and a source of agitation among students and heads of schools", Bishop Bemile said.
He appealed to the people in the region to do away with all forms of activities or practices that would undermine children's education and
development.
Madam Justina Dery, the Headmistress of the school, said the school was established as a result of collaborative efforts between the Nadowli District Assembly and the Catholic Dioceses of Wa in 1999 with 76 students but now has a student population of 600.
She said for the past four years the school had scored 100 per cent in the Senior Secondary School examinations and with aggregate 10 as its best aggregate for 2008.
Madam Dery said despite those successes, the school was faced with inadequate infrastructure including lack of science laboratory, classrooms
and dormitories as well as a fence wall.