Minister Urges Citizens to Help Promote Education

The Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, Mr. Ignatius Baffour Awuah, has appealed to Traditional Authorities, District and Municipal Assemblies, churches and citizens of the region to put their shoulders to the wheel to advance the cause of education and to help train children to become responsible and useful citizens of the country.

He said without the active support of citizens of the region, there can not be any meaningful headway in educating children of the region. The regional minister made the appeal at the maiden Awards Day of the Sunyani Senior Secondary School,(SUSEC),on Saturday. The Awards Day is to honour both teaching and non teaching staff and students who have made the school proud and excelled in their work. Mr. Baffour Awuah gave the assurance that "government will continue to play its part in the areas of the provision of infrastructure, teachers and teaching and learning materials for schools as evidenced by the massive infrastructural development taking place in selected schools in the region". He urged stakeholders to brace themselves for the new educational reform system which begins in September this year and contribute their quota to its success. The new system is aimed at training children to cope with the scientific and technological challenges and learning strategies that will stimulate children to be critical and creative thinkers and also develop the requisite attitudes and social skills. The regional minister, a past student of SUSEC, reminded the students that it is their responsibility to strive for excellence and desist from acts such as hooliganism, drug abuse and sexual promiscuity that are likely to destroy their future. He also urged heads of second cycle schools in the region to involve staff and students in the administration of their schools so that they would not have any cause to engage in strikes and their attendant destruction of school property. “Parents, teachers and members of the community have roles to play in ensuring that our young ones display a high sense of discipline while they remain in our educational institutions”, he emphasized. He paid tribute to the founding fathers of the school for their vision and tenacity of purpose in establishing the school. He also recognized the contributions and support the chiefs and people of the region, the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service have given to the school. Mr. Baffour Awuah commended the award winners and advised those who did not receive any award to strive hard to be among the winners in subsequent celebrations. The regional minister presented a lap top computer valued at fifteen million cedis to 19 year old immediate past student of the school, Anita Owusu Serebour for emerging as the best Business student. The Headmaster of the school, Mr Joseph Awuah, appealed to authorities and the public to assist the school with buses because all the school's buses are aged and are no more reliable and road worthy. He also asked for help to provide the school with a spacious computer laboratory to accommodate more students because ICT is going to be a teaching subject in the new educational reform. Mr Awuah noted that staff accommodation has also bedeviled the school over the years adding that out of the seventy tutors, only thirty are staying on campus. The situation makes it difficult for the few masters on campus to maitain discipline. He therefore called for more more staff bungalows. The headmaster said the school, which started with forty two students in September 1960 now has a student population of 1,676 made up of 1,169 boys and 507 girls. Out of the number, 1,600 are boarders while the remaining 117 are day students.

He added that staff strenght has risen from five in 1960 to seventy ,handling all the senior seconadry school pogrammes.