‘Allow children to explore creative ability’
A lecturer at the Centre for Social Policy Studies (CSPS) at the University of Ghana, Professor Mrs Ellen Bortei-Doku Aryeetey, has urged society to allow children to explore their creative ability.
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She said children should be allowed to explore and given the opportunity to dream and aspire to become innovative men and women in the future.
Prof. Mrs Aryeetey was speaking at the Speech and Prize-giving Day of Victory Presbyterian School at Frafraha near Adentan in Accra.
Carefully structured system
She observed that even in the schools, “everything is so carefully structured that here also, there is little room for dreaming and being creative,” adding that students who demonstrated creativity were shipped into the Visual Arts class.
Prof. Mrs Aryeetey admitted that it was because of the “rigid” Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) system and the need to prepare children to succeed at that level, “but we need to consider ways in which we can create a bit more space for students to explore.”
“Today, middle-class children in Ghana do not bother to dream because their parents are busy dreaming for them – Everything in their lives is carefully managed to the last detail by parents and guardians.
“What schools they will go to and what subjects they will study now and in the future are all predetermined by us! In the end, we leave our children very little opportunity to dream to aspire,” Prof. Mrs Aryeetey noted.
She lauded the school for its numerous achievements in its 21 years of existence, adding that the performance was clearly a building block of a bigger and brighter future.
She impressed on the school to make available adequate resources to expose the staff to refresher programmes on a regular basis, as well as provide appropriate incentive schemes to encourage them to put in their best efforts.
From humble beginning
The Director of the school, Rev. (Mrs) Florence B. Simpson, in a report, said the school which started with 23 pupils in 1995, currently has 1,384 pupils with 83 teaching and non-teaching staff.
She said since the school started writing the BECE in 1998, it had always scored 100 per cent pass, citing for instance that the school won the Best Student Award in the Adentan Municipality from 2009 to 2013, as well as in 2015.
“We were also honoured with the Best Private School Award in 2009 and 2014. The school also received a Presidential Award in 2012 and the Best Student Award in the Ga Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in 2013,” she enumerated.