Govt. will not tolerate acts of indiscipline in schools

Konongo (Ash), Nov. 30, GNA -President John Agyekum Kufuor said on Saturday that while government will not condone poor administration in schools, it would also not tolerate acts of indiscipline and vandalism from students.

Such acts of indiscipline in schools, he said, were anti-social and criminal.

President Kufuor therefore, asked the sensible students among their colleagues to be alert to expose the misfits, otherwise their lives would be endangered.

He was addressing the Speech and Prize Giving Day of Konongo-Odumase Secondary School (KOSS) at Odumase, to climax the weeklong activities of the Golden Jubilee celebration of the school.

The celebration had as its theme: "Moving Ghana Through Quality Education." KOSS was officially opened on 23rd February 1953, as the first second cycle institution in the Asante-Akim traditional area, under the Ghana Education Trust.

It began with 26 students made up of 21 boys and five girls and now has a population of 1630.

The President regretted that, the excellent record of the school achieved over the years was dented by violent student demonstrations, which resulted in the destruction of school property including computers at the school's computer centre.

He therefore, wondered whether the nation could be moved forward with such barbarism and chaos.

President Kufuor told the students that their secondary school period will be one of their best moments in their lives, pointing out that the secondary school was the formative period during which the student was groomed towards life and which they will forever remember.

He asked the students therefore, to strive to leave behind the positive things for which they will be remembered.

The President said government's vision of achieving a middle-income status for the country was dependent on education that was why education is allocated chunk of money in the budget.

He announced that KOSS had been selected as one of the Senior Secondary schools to benefit from upgrading and that the contract for the commencement of work had been awarded.

President Kufuor said life in this modern world revolved on Information, Communication Technology (ICT) that was why the government had secured a 150-million dollar loan from ALCATEL BELL of Shangai, China to extend telephone facilities to all secondary schools in the country.

President Kufuor announced that government had decided to include a representative of the youth to the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, Switzerland next month.

He said the gesture was to equip the youth with technological information for the future.

The President thanked all persons and organisations in the country who have contributed to the development of schools in general and KOSS in particular.

President Kufuor donated 20 million cedis to the school and directed the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports to present a new buss to the school in commemoration of the jubilee celebration.

In his report, Mr Kwame Ameyaw Amoah, the Headmaster of the school said the school had learnt tremendous lessons from the violent demonstration and consequently instituted appropriate measures to avert any such occurrence in future.

He therefore, pleaded with all to put the unfortunate events behind them and strive to move forward with renewed mind and determination to remedy the school's dented image.

He said, the school, in spite of its inadequacies chalked an unprecedented 100 percent passes in last year's Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination.

Mr Amoah commended the Parent/Teacher Association (PTA) of the school for the provision of three dormitory annexes for the girls, the building of a five semi-detached three bedroom accommodation for the staff, the provision of a standby generator, the purchase of a mini-bus for the school and corn mill for the kitchen and subsidizing the rent of staff and organising extra classes in the school.

He hoped the upgrading arrangement would appreciate the school's peculiar problems and provide it with more classrooms, dormitories, a library, expansion of the dinning hall, assembly hall, staff accommodation, home economics and visual arts block and improved sanitation facilities in the expansion programme.

Professor Edward Ofori-Sarpong, Pro Vice-Chancellor to the University of Ghana, Legon, an old student, who chaired the function, suggested the re-visiting of the policy to reserve 30 percent vacancies in senior secondary schools for students in the communities in which the school are located.

He said this would avoid the situation in which children of poor parentage in whose areas such educational facilities were located were not reduced to chasers of surplus food, but were counted among students on whose shoulders lay the future development of the nation.