A front view of the Frafraha Community Day SHS

Frafraha gets Community Day SHS

Kwame Asare Boadu Nov - 12 - 2016 , 12:48

There was excitement at Frafraha, a community in the Adentan Municipality in Accra, yesterday when President John Mahama inaugurated the Frafraha Community Day Senior High School (SHS).

About 500 pioneer students have been enrolled in the school, the first Community Day SHS to be inaugurated in the Greater Accra Region. In all, 10 of the schools are being constructed in the region. President Mahama was expected to inaugurate another Community Day SHS at Kwabenya later in the day.The Frafraha SHS boasts facilities, including 24 classrooms, four laboratories (Physics, Chemistry, Biology and General Science), two libraries, offices, and an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory, 16 washrooms and an assembly hall.ExpectationPerforming the inaugural ceremony, President Mahama said although Frafraha was in an urban area, it lacked access to SHS education, which informed the government’s decision to build the school in the community.The President said the school had everything to facilitate teaching and learning and, therefore, he expected excellent delivery from its students.He said the Greater Accra Region had 39 public SHSs with about 50,000 places, which meant many children faced challenges with access.That was why the 10 Community Day SHSs being built in the region would be one of the best things to happen to the region's educational drive.President Mahama stated that five of the schools were ready to be inaugurated.Completion of schoolsPresident Mahama said the government had committed itself, in the National Democratic Congress (NDC) manifesto, to completing all the 200 promised Community Day SHS by 2020.Currently, 42 of the schools are ready for this academic year.The President said the government's investment in secondary education placed emphasis on ICT. So far, 555 schools have been supported with ICT infrastructure.He indicated that the government was poised to start the pilot E-book programme.He commended the teacher unions for collaborating with the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to reduce teacher absenteeism from 27 per cent to seven per cent.The development, he noted, had contributed to the improved academic performance in schools.