GES presents prizes to six students

Accra, May 23, GNA - The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi on Tuesday urged Ghanaians to embrace peace for development and progress in all spheres of national life.

He said without peace there could be no meaningful development. Neither could effective academic work go on in the schools. Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi was speaking at the presentation of prizes to winners of the Sathya Sai National Essay Competition for first and second cycle schools.

The competition was launched last year to promote moral education based on five basic values - truth, right conduct, peace, love and non-violence - and to find out children's understanding of these virtues.

It was also aimed at instilling in the children these basic values to make them responsible and well prepared for the future. He said the GES has realised that moral education plays an important role in the lives of children. It has over the past years, therefore, introduced moral and religious education into the school curricular so as to promote harmony in society as well as ensure the full development of the potentials of students.

Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi advised teachers and parents to play their part as role models and encourage children to avoid negative tendencies such as drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, examination malpractice and indiscipline, which tend to hamper the attainment of their full potentials.

Mr Kishin Khubchandani, co-ordinator of Sathya Sai Seva Organisation for Africa and Britain, observed that morals are currently very low because of a breakdown in inculcating basic moral values in the youth at school. He said the current educational structure, which places emphasis on acquisition of knowledge for gainful employment while neglecting the role of good moral behaviour, should be changed to ensure that good academic education goes hand-in-hand with training in basic human values.

In this direction, he said, his organisation would soon establish schools in the country to train students both morally and academically. Six students, who excelled in the essay competition at the junior and senior secondary schools, were awarded prizes.

They each received a certificate, book and cash prizes. Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi made a personal donation of 250,000 cedis to Julliet Agbeibor, who won the first prize in the junior secondary school category.