Encourage girls to embrace technology — Second Lady
The Second Lady, Mrs Matilda Amissah-Arthur, has stressed the need for girls to be encouraged to embrace technology.
Advertisement
Speaking at the 10th anniversary and first Speech and Prize-giving Day of the Accra Wesley Girls’ High School, Mrs Amissah-Arthur said girls needed to be inspired in a way that would change their perception of mathematics and science.
The theme for the occasion was: “The Girl Child Education in a Technological World - The role of stakeholders”.
“There has to be some conscious effort to bridge the gap between the image girls have of mathematics and technical jobs and the real success that they could have with careers in these areas,” she noted.
“The onus is on the teachers to motivate, challenge and help students to find their potentials. Girls can do any subject boys can do in the right environment if given the necessary training, motivation and help needed to overcome any barriers that may be,” she emphasised.
She also asked parents to ensure that their daughters were not stereotyped to the extent that they would lose their confidence, adding that “once you shatter the girl’s confidence at this stage, you maim her for life”.
Mrs Amissah-Arthur further called on parents and guardians to know and support what their children were doing in school because they were partners in the education of their children.
She cautioned the students that the Internet, apart from being an educative tool, could also lead people astray and warned that some of the sites were not just uneducative but dangerous and fraudulent.
The Second Lady stressed that girl-child education was a joint effort where students, parents, teachers, headmistress, old girls, the board, the Ministry of Education and the church must all come together to ensure that girls were prepared for the world.
For his part, the Presiding Bishop of the Methodist Church Ghana, Most Rev. Prof. Emmanuel K. Asante, who was the special guest of honour, asked the students to stay on the positive aspect of the internet and other social media platforms, adding that it was important that they exercised some level of self-discipline in order to avoid the dangers associated with their usage.