Afia Kobi Ampem SHS makes strides
Ten years ago, authorities of the then Atwimaman Secondary School in Kumasi launched a programme to turn the school from a co-educational institution into a female school.
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This led to the birth of the Afia Kobi Ampem Senior High School, with a firm commitment to nurturing the potential of the female students more meaningfully for their proper growth and development.
This, according to the school authorities, would help build their capacity in a way that would make them productive and responsible citizens ready to support accelerated and sustainable socio-economic development in diverse ways.
Establishment
Established by the government on October 27, 1975 as a co-educational institution and christened Trabuom Secondary School, the name was changed to Atwimaman Secondary School and subsequently named Afia Kobi Ampem Senior High School after it was turned into a female school during the 2002/2003 academic year in response to the growing needs for improved girl-child education in the area.
Since then, the school has produced a total of 3,900 students, many of whom have completed tertiary institutions and are working in various positions.
According to the school’s Headmistress, Ms Asuande Eshun-Fameyeh, beside instilling a high sense of discipline and good moral attitudes into students, the school has also motivated students based on the ‘can do spirit’ that has encouraged past students to excel in their respective chosen professions.
Speaking at the second speech and prize-giving day of the school, she said “Discipline goes beyond just obeying school rules and regulations. A disciplined student sticks to his or her study timetable, has high regard for time, for studies, as well as for recreation and submits to authority both at school and at home.”
Infrastructure
Ms Eshun-Famiyeh commended the government for providing the school with the needed infrastructure to enhance academic work but indicated that the school needed an assembly hall, and appealed to the GETFund administrator to support them complete work on the assembly hall that had come to a standstill for sometime now.
In an address, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of History and Political Science of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Dr Mariam Marciana Kuusaana, observed that successive governments had made positive efforts at advancing girls’ education in the country.
She said that had led to many more girls gaining admission into professional institutions which were hitherto perceived to be the preserve of men.
She advised female students to guard against temptations and anti-social vices that negatively interfered with their educational career, and mentioned the lack of parental guidance, crave for material wealth at the expense of their children’s education, obsession of some girls to blindly follow fashion at the expense of their education and negative cultural practices as some of the challenges affecting girls education, saying, these must be addressed.
