Build strong partnerships to promote education - Ibn Chambers
The United Nations Special Representative for West Africa, Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, has called for a stronger partnership between parents and school authorities to unleash the potential of schoolchildren and improve the quality of education.
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“For, unless we enhance the involvement of parents in strong teacher-parents partnership, the quality of education schoolchildren receive may be compromised,” he said.
Speaking at the 137th anniversary speech and prize-giving day of the Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast, Dr Chambas said every successful educational outcome was the product of a creative partnership between parents and teachers.
“More often than not, I have seen how parents who take their children to private schools are deeply involved in their daily education, including thorough supervision of school and homework,” he said.
Unleashing human potentials
Dr Chambas said the public school system could chalk up successess similar to those of private schools, if the same supervision were extended to those in the public system.
He said education still remained the only known potent tool that unleashed real human potential and knowledge that improved one’s chances of employment and enhanced efficiency and productivity.
The UN Special Envoy said it was sad that in African countries many children were out of school coupled with the fact that there were challenges such as poverty, diseases, hunger and underdevelopment in the potentially rich continent.
He said the situation was a travesty of most sacred hopes for which reason Africa liberation could not be said to be complete.
Quality education
Dr Chambas said in Ghana, like elsewhere in the world, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, access to quality education continued to face monumental challenges.
He said available statistics indicated that 30 million out-of-school children lived in sub-Saharan Africa in 2012, which represented half of the global total.
The present generation, he said, had their jobs already cut for them and that they had to employ education and knowledge to work for the betterment of human condition to fight poverty, ignorance and disease and promote prosperity of communities, and the continent.
For his part, the Chief Executive of the Standard Chartered Bank, Mr Kweku Bedu-Addo, who was the guest speaker, said it was about time heavy reliance on government for education was looked at again.
In his report, the Headmaster of the school, Mr John Kwamena Simpson Ankomah, said out of the 652 students presented by the school, 457 students had eight passes, 149 students had seven passes, 40 students had six passes, three students had five passes, one student had four passes and two students three passes.
“I must say there were no failures and absentees and also no result was withheld or cancelled,” he said.
He said all the successes were chalked up on the back of improved general discipline in the school and that the issues of stealing by students, use of mobile phones, and breaking of bounds had also reduced to the barest minimum.
Senior Prefect’s report
In his report, the Senior Prefect of the school, Master Louis Owusu Banahene, called for improved infrastructure to help teaching and learning in the school.
He said the school also placed first in the 2014 edition of National Science and Mathematics Quiz at the regional and national levels.
In all, 30 students were honoured for their outstanding academic performances.