Achimota Senior High appeals to government for support

The headmistress of the Achimota Senior High School, Mrs Beatrice Adom, has appealed to the government to come to the aid of the school and help resolve the challenges confronting the school, to secure a conducive teaching and learning atmosphere for the students.

She said the school needed classrooms, boarding accommodation, and furniture to create a conducive teaching and learning atmosphere, as well as a fence to save lives and property, and added that the incidents of encroachment on the school’s property were real threats, “frightening and worrisome” to members of the school’s community.Addressing the school’s 89th Anniversary Speech and Prize-giving Day in Accra recently, she said the institution had been battling with encroachment of its lands by churches, estate developers and the displaced residents of Sodom and Gomorrah, who have relocated and were occupying some portions of the school’s land.She indicated that the school could not admit more students for the first year enrolment for the 2015-2016 academic year, due to the unavailability of classrooms, boarding facilities, and furniture.The school had already admitted 1,050 new students for the 2015-2016 academic year, but the headmistress said some parents and guardians were still putting pressure on the school administration in their bid to get their children and wards admitted.Appreciate problems “We are also appealing to parents to appreciate the problems the school is grappling with and desist from putting pressure on the school administration in their bid to get their children into boarding houses,” she added.According to Mrs Beatrice Adom, there were a number of theft cases in the school last year, including the vandalisation of the renovated school kitchen and removal of louvre blades, electrical and plumbing fittings by intruders, due to the problem of encroachment, which also put the security of the staff and students at risk.The headmistress indicated that about 172.68 acres of the school land earmarked for expansion works, had been taken over by encroachers. The squatters, she said, were gradually getting closer to the school’s facilities, especially the newly constructed Millennium Dormitory Block.   The school, she added, continued to face inadequate water supply and indicated that facilities in some part of the school have not had water flow through their taps for more than seven years.Use internet wiselyThe immediate past Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Professor Ernest Aryeetey, advised the students to critically analyse information obtained from the internet before consuming it, stressing, "You will have to ensure that the information you access on the internet is translated into applied knowledge to make you competitive. This could be done by engaging constructively and regularly with your teachers as well as developing an enquiring and analytical mind".Prof. Aryeetey advised the students to make optimum use of opportunities offered to students on the social media, pointing out that, "there are many instances when young people like you developed various IT applications for companies to use in their day-to-day operations for which they were rewarded".