Let's create a meaningful educational system - Cardinal Turkson

Accra, June 30, GNA – His Eminence Peter Cardinal Appiah Turkson, the President of the Pontifical Commission for Peace and Justice at the Vatican has proposed the establishment of a Catholic education that enabled the Ghanaian to respond to his vocation.

“Let us aspire after a Catholic education that makes for creativity and productivity that promotes human flourishing and integral development on account of the non-absence of ideas,” he said

Cardinal Turkson made the observation when he delivered a public lecture on the theme: “A Catholic Education for a Better Ghana” as part of the 60th Anniversary of the Bishop Herman College (BIHECO).

The school established on February 28, 1952 with 25 boys was named after Bishop Augustine Herman, the first Catholic Bishop of the Keta Diocese. It currently has a student population of 1,370.

He said the understanding of education dated back to the ancient Greek Philosophers of wisdom and the Christian commitment to learning took that wisdom of the ancient Greeks and the married it to Christ, the word and the wisdom of the father.

“The understanding of education and knowledge is deeply embedded in the mission of Bishop Herman College,” he said.

Cardinal Turkson stated that in the light of discerned and discovered challenges, authorities needed to formulate a form of Catholic education that offers a solution to at least the main challenges of human flourishing.

He noted that the world needed scholars who would be able to seek, know and defend the truth, hence a Catholic College must be the place in which the encounter with the truth must take place.

He said creativity-driven Catholic education and the partnership with Catholic institutions existed to help address the problem of social poverty in the presence of economic growth which was a challenge to the vision of the encyclical Caritas in veritate.

He said for current and old students to know about themselves and the purpose of their lives at 60, they needed to acknowledge and embrace their origin and vocation.

Cardinal Turkson used the occasion to congratulate the school for attaining 60 years in providing quality education for national development.

GNA