St Augustine’s College launches 87th Speech, Prize-giving Day

The St Augustine’s College has launched its 87th Speech and Prize-giving Day anniversary with a call for ethics and leadership training to be introduced into the curriculum of second cycle institutions. 

The event, which was held in Accra last Friday on the theme: “Raising Ethical Leaders for Nation Building: The Pivotal Role of Students,” was also used to raise funds to support some development projects in the school.

Present at the event were key personalities such as a former Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Michael Nsowah; the Managing Director of Graphic Communications Group Limited (GCGL), Ing Kenneth Ashigbey; the Member of Parliament for New Juaben North, Mr Hackman Owusu-Agyemang, and other members of St Augustine’s Past Students Union (APSU).

Brief history

St Augustine’s College is a Roman Catholic institution that was established in 1930 in Cape Coast as an all-male academic institution. It is the first Catholic second-cycle school to be built in Ghana, formerly called the Gold Coast.

The 87th Speech and Prize-giving anniversary of the institution is scheduled for March 18, 2017.

Clad in green APSU polo shirts they sang the school anthem and encouraged one another to support their alma mater to remain a top-class school.

Theme apt and relevant

Ing Kenneth Ashigbey observed that the theme was apt and relevant because it came at a time the country was in great need of the right calibre of leaders.

He said a country that lacked the right leadership would be confronted with daunting challenges, for which leadership training should start in schools.

He called on all APSU members to support the 1992 Year Group, the hosts of the 87th anniversary, to be able to undertake the projects they had lined up.

The projects, estimated at GH¢600,000, comprise the refurbishment of the Biology, Agriculture, Arts, and Music blocks and the purchase of musical instruments for the Music Department.

Leadership training 

A member of APSU 1992, Mr Abbass Kilba, said the way forward to tackling the leadership challenge was for ethical leadership training to be introduced into the school curriculum.

“Students ought to be trained to acquire the right leadership skills in their formative years. An ethical student becomes an ethical leader and an ethical leader makes a good nation,” he added.

He said the skills and potential of the youth would be properly harnessed through the use of role models and the creation of the right social environment.

“The type of leadership we seek to inculcate in our future leaders is positive leadership which is based on integrity, courage, vision, and selflessness,” he added.

Protect image of school

The Headmaster of the school, Mr Joseph Connel, bemoaned the improper use of social media by the youth and called for circumspection in its usage.

He called on APSU and the current students to always protect the image of the school, especially by being circumspect in the kind of things they put out in the public about the school.

Mr Connel said the school had created enough safeguards to build the character of students.

An initiative dubbed “Desire to Inspire” was launched by APSU 1992 Year Group to motivate the younger generation of the school to aspire to higher heights. It was also meant to motivate past students to give back to the school.