St. Francis Girls' Senior High celebrates Golden jubilee

Jirapa (U/W), Nov. 18, GNA - The government has the vision of turning Saint Francis Girls Senior High School in Jirapa into a centre of excellence for the study of mathematics and science, Vice President John Dramani Mahama has said.

He said the reason was to encourage more girls to study mathematics and science and specialize in those subjects.

Vice President Mahama said this at the 50th anniversary of St. Francis of Assisi Senior High School that was on the theme: "50th years of quality Catholic Education - The way forward: Reinforcement of the girl-child education".

Vice President Mahama appealed to past students of the school to set up an endowment fund to cater for needy but brilliant girls and also for girls who decide to study science subjects.

He said the old girls should encourage many of the past students to come back to serve the school at least for a reasonable period, as a way of giving back to the school for making them what they are.

Vice President Mahama said the occasion marked five decades of the Catholic Church's empowerment of the human resources of the Upper West Region, and its role in granting the girl-child formal education in an otherwise culturally discriminatory environment against women.

He said the Saint Francis Girls Senior High School had infused academic pursuance with spirituality, which in no doubt had succeeded in turning out capable, disciplined and responsible citizens.

" It is therefore imperative that we acknowledge the enormous contributions of the Catholic Church in our national development, and work collectively to ensure the deepening and strengthening of the partnership between the state and the church in bringing holistic development to the people", Vice President Mahama said.

He said the history of the nation could not be divorced from the overarching influence of the Catholic Church for which the country was perpetually grateful for its priceless interventions in education, health, agriculture and vocational training centres.

Vice President Mahama said: "Indeed, the contribution of the Catholic Church is even more pronounced, when it is put within the context of the overall development of the Upper West Region in particular and northern Ghana as a whole".

He said in the education sector, more than half of the basic schools in the region alone were Catholic schools and that the success of education in the region owed a lot to the effort of the Catholic Church.

He said in the area of health, the picture was similar as the Church had to its credit two important hospitals at Nandom and Jirapa with the later offering State Registered Nurse, Midwifery and Community Health Training programmes.

Vice President Mahama said despite the modest progress made in the promotion of female education, the drop out rate among them at the basic school level was still high and needed urgent efforts to stem the trend.

He mentioned early marriages, elopement and poverty as some of the challenges that had contributed to the drop out rate among girls and called for efforts to address the cultural and economic issues which undermined the girl child education and causing migration.

He said if women were provided with formal education, the rippling effect as educators would manifest nationwide in terms of poverty reduction, preventable diseases reduction in maternal deaths and morbidity of children less than five years among others.

Vice President Mahama said government placed premium on education as a major tool for national development and was coming out with policies and programmes to give meaning to that commitment to ensure the overall human resource development of the country.

He urged Internet Café operators to strictly restrict minors from browsing websites with sexual or negative content.

He called for the enforcement of laws on decency so as to enable children benefit fully from the positive aspects of ICT.

Vice President Mahama appealed to Metropolitan, Municipal and District assemblies in the north to develop specific incentives for female education at higher levels so as to compliment efforts of non-governmental organisations.

GNA