THE Minister of Transportation, Dr Richard Anane, has assured students and staff of the Evangelical Presbyterian Senior High School (HEPSS) that the two-kilometre access road leading to the school will soon be rehabilitated.
He said the road project was seriously receiving attention and funds will be released for works to begin.
Dr Anane said this in a speech read on his behalf at the 46th Speech and Prize-giving Day ceremony of the school at Hohoe in the Volta Region.
Speaking on the theme “The New Reform— Challenges and Prospects”, he said the educational reform being pursued by the government required more infrastructural facilities to enhance teaching and learning in schools.
According to the minister, “the government faces the daunting task of providing infrastructure such as staff accommodation, classrooms, libraries, science blocks, workshops, buses and other logistics with the scarce resources at its disposal”.
On Information Communication Technology (ICT), he said the government, in conjunction with the Ghana Education Service (GES), had assisted a number of schools to run ICT courses, which will be replicated in other senior high schools throughout the country.
He said the performance of teachers had also been improved to meet the challenges of the new reform through such programmes as upgrading teacher training colleges to diploma-awarding institutions, distance education and sandwich programmes.
On the forthcoming election, he emphasised that as one people with a common destiny, all of us should create the enabling peaceful atmosphere and said, those who had not yet attained the voting age especially students, should not attempt to vote since that would seriously affect their education.
The Volta Regional Director of Education, Reverend Samuel Amankwa, advised parents, as partners in education, to establish cordial relationships with teachers, and added, “Make the education of your ward your central focus and seek such opportunities for them, not only in public institutions but also in the private ones”.
The headmaster of the school, Mr John Osei-Nyansa, said the school, which was established in 1961 and now had a student population of over 800, with 46 teachers, offered General Arts, General Science, Business and Vocational programmes.
The headmaster said the school was supposed to have 21 classrooms for the old programme, but only 10 could be called classrooms.
He said apart from all these problems, the teachers continued to put in their best and their results continued to be good.
In 2006, for instance, he said the school recorded 100 per cent passes with 45 per cent moving on to tertiary institutions, while they scored 98 per cent in 2007 and 98 per cent in 2008.
The headmaster noted that though efforts were being made to provide more infrastructure in the school, that would not solve the immediate challenges facing it, in spite of it being a model school.
Their challenges, he said, were mostly accommodation for staff, boys and girls dormitories and classrooms for the ever increasing student population.
He also touched on the access road to the school, which, he said, was in a very deplorable state.
In all, 26 students, teaching and non-teaching staff members received various prizes for their meritorious achievements in their respective areas.
Miss Patience Hottor, 19, a second-year General Arts student, who received the overall best student award, took home a shield, certificate, books and GH¢ 20.00.
No comments:
Post a Comment