Kwabenya Community SHS Celebrates 1st Anniversary

The Kwabenya Community Senior High School (SHS) at the weekend held its maiden anniversary in Accra. The School, which was commissioned on November 11, 2016, was a World Bank and the Government sponsored project, to improve the quality and accessibility of education in the Dome-Kwabenya Constituency.

Speaking on the theme: "Quality Education - The Role of Stakeholders in this Cyber World," Lawyer Anthony Boateng, the Acting Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), said quality education should be the type of education that produced individuals who would think critically and find solutions to issues that retarded societal progress and development.

He said in the enterprise of providing quality education, all members of the community should see themselves as stakeholders, since the type and nature of education the society provided had a direct bearing on society's development and purpose.

"Stakeholders have a critical role to play in the provision of quality education especially in this cyber world. The world today is now controlled and manipulated by cyber, this development has forced the world to become a global village and no community can afford to live in isolation for the rest of their lives," he said.

Lawyer Boateng noted that with this development, students of the educational system now faced explosion of knowledge, some very positive but unfortunately, others very dangerous and inimical to individual and societal development.

"It is under this circumstance that all stakeholders of our educational system find themselves today, and they must therefore be conscious of their respective roles in ensuring that this current development is managed to reap positive impact for the benefits of the students and the society as a whole; whilst at the same time being conscious of its negative effects," he said.

He bemoaned the development where whether or not students were allowed to use mobile phones in schools saying, "Such acts were part of the dilemma society face as part of developments in the cyber world".

The Deputy Director General of GES therefore called on teachers to adopt strategies that would ensure that they remained relevant to the students in this cyber world.

He also urged parents and guidance to be conscious in the event their wards found themselves in this cyber world, adding; "Parents and teachers must corporate and work with students to ensure that students receive quality education and for the benefit of society as a whole".

"Society must also appreciate the fact that the education of students is not the sole responsibility of the teachers or the parent or guardian, but a shared responsibility and should be seen as a collective societal effort to build its own future," he advised.

Professor Benjamin J. B. Nyarko, the Director General of the Ghana Atomic Energy Commission, advised the students to work hard on their academics and be disciplined.

Giving the history of the school, Ms Elizabeth A. Sam, the Headmistress, said currently the school could boost of 66 staff where 54 represented teaching staff with the remaining 12 being non-teaching staff.

On enrolment, she mentioned that the student population stood at 1,105, representing 548 boys and 557 girls.

"Thirty-nine of the form two students are beneficiaries of the Secondary Education Improvement Plan Scholarship, whilst 474 first-year-students are benefiting from the Free Senior High School policy," she said.

Ms Sam identified General Science, General Arts, Business, Home Economics, Visual Arts and Technical Skills as among the programmes the School offered.

She noted the School runs on the principle of discipline and that, students had been made to understand that discipline had a distance relationship with academic performance, and also the bedrock of every successful venture, so they had to be disciplined in all endeavours.

Ms Kpentey Tiffany Adikie, the Head Prefect of the School, presenting her report, called for an extension work on the School's Assembly Hall, as their current population had outlived the facility.

Prizes and awards were presented to students who excelled in academics and other extra-curricular activities during the 2016/2017 academic year.