THE Vice-President, Mr John Dramani Mahama, has assured boards and managements of senior high schools that contracts have been awarded for the construction of critical infrastructure in schools to ensure that all their needs were met.
He has, therefore, urged them to endeavour to manage with their existing facilities till the government is able to address their infrastructural needs.
Mr Mahama said this in an address read on his behalf by Mr Joseph Amenowode, the Volta Regional Minister, at the 50th Anniversary celebration of the Bueman Senior High School (BUSEC) at Jasikan in the Volta Region.
The Vice-President expressed his satisfaction at the fact that BUSEC had benefited from the construction of a seven-classroom block valued at GH¢26,000 and noted that the necessary documentation was being made to extend similar facilities to more schools.
“I strongly believe that human resource development is the surest way to the attainment of accelerated economic development”, he said.
And because of BUSEC’s contribution to the human resource base of the country, their physical facilities are being improved to promote further educational development, the Vice-President stated.
He was enthused by the theme of the celebration “50 years of academic excellence: success and challenges in a deprived environment”, and called on all stakeholders to remain dedicated to the goals of the school’s founding fathers.
The Vice-President gave the reminder that the success of the “Better Ghana Agenda” needed a commitment to a superior educational delivery.
He commended the founding fathers of the school and successive boards of management for imbuing in the students the sense of academic excellence, moral uprightness and hard work.
Mr Mahama urged the present crop of students to also endeavour to take up these qualities as key to their individual and collective advancement.
Mr Henry Ford Kamel, Member of Parliament for Buem Constituency and Deputy Minister of Lands and Forestry, commended the school for its achievement over the years.
“You have contributed your quota to national development through the very personalities engaged in various endeavours countrywide”, Mr Ford Kamel said.
The MP called on the school authorities to aspire to make the school a centre of excellence and thus compete with the well-endowed schools, which calls for hard work and dedication to realise the vision of the school.
In his report, Mr Francis Ametefe, the Headmaster of BUSEC, said whereas some schools were finding it a problem to absorb the present first year students, BUSEC could absorb up to 500 of them. “But as of now, only 215 freshers have reported”, he lamented.
The school, he said, started in 1960 by the late Mr Christopher Kwaku Nayo of Old Baika in 1960 with 12 students and a staff of five, now has 1,173 students.
He said from rented premises, the school was fortunate to benefit from the government’s model status policy.
He noted that the school had over the past eight years moved up in its academic achievements.
“From a 79 per cent pass in 2001 in the WASCE, there has been a steady progress to 99 per cent in 2009”, he said.
On challenges facing the school, Mr Ametefe mentioned the delays in the payment of government scholarships and GETFund subsidies.
“Students under our care should be catered for and their needs cannot be suspended until funds are available”, he said.
He also mentioned the lack of accommodation for the staff, pointing out that there were only five bungalows on the compound to accommodate 60 teaching and non-teaching staff.
He regretted that though they had an ICT laboratory, it was not equipped with computers.
He therefore, appealed to the government to assist them with computers.
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