Selasa, 24 April 2012

Accra Girls celebrate Speech and Prize Giving Day

Story: Zainabu Issah
AUTHORITIES of the Accra Girls’ Senior High School (AGISS) are calling for additional residential facilities to accommodate its students.

Although an 18-unit classroom block has been provided, a three-storey dormitory block started in 2007 is yet to be completed

Addressing the school’s Speech and Prize-giving Day on Saturday, the Headmistress, Ms Veronica Akapame, appealed to the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to get a contractor to speed up work on the three-storey dormitory block for the school.

She said the inadequate accommodation situation was putting pressure on its existing facilities.

“The number of students keeps increasing every day, and since the inception of the Computerised Schools Selection and Placement System (CSSPS), the demand for boarding facilities to accommodate students has also increased,” she said.

Ms Akapame advised parents not to allow their children to send mobile phones to school, as the phones distracted the students from their studies.

“Mobile phones, being what they are, distract the students from their studies and do not help in instilling discipline in the children and improving their academic performance,” she said.

She expressed gratitude to the parent-teacher association (PTA) of the school for providing the school with polytanks and rebuilding septic tanks for some places of convenience which were choked.

“The PTA has not relented in its efforts to motivate the staff and make life comfortable for the students,” she said.

She expressed optimism that the school would grow steadily in all areas when more attention was paid to academic issues.

Speaking on the theme: ”Making Education Career-Oriented, A Need for the 21st Century”, a clinical psychologist at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, Dr Araba Sefa-Dede, urged the students to be accustomed to the knowledge, skills and values that they needed to be successful.

“Knowledge is not the only thing that you need to acquire to be whole but the skills and values that you attach to it makes you unique among others,” she explained.

She also advised the students to develop the skills of relating to people, so that they could interact with and impart the knowledge they had to others.

She also asked them to resist material things that could easily distract them from their education and rather concentrate a lot more on their education.

Students who excelled in various academic disciplines were rewarded for their performance, as well as teachers who exhibited exceptional performance.