‘Enhance quality education with reforms’
A director in charge of Pre-Tertiary Education at the Ministry of Education has urged private schools to take advantage of the upcoming government reforms in education to enhance quality education among students.
Mrs Catherine Agyapomaa Appiah-Pinkrah also charged schools to hinge academic knowledge on the values of creativity, hard work and humility.
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She made these calls at the 34th Graduation Speech and Prize-giving Ceremony of MotherCare School at East Cantonments in Accra.
Values
Delivering a speech as the guest speaker, Mrs Appiah-Pinkrah said the school must endeavour to inculcate creativity, humility and hard work into students, saying those must serve as the bedrock on which academic knowledge must sit even though they were not necessarily part of a school curricular.
"Mere academic knowledge is meaningless unless it sits on the value of creativity, knowledge and hard work,” she stated.
She called for a conscious effort to harmonise societal values with academic knowledge.
Mrs Appiah-Pinkrah praised MotherCare School for instilling discipline in students and bringing out other creative talents in students.
Corporal punishment
The director, who is a management planner by training, decried the use of the rod to bring up a child, denouncing the simplistic connotation ascribed to the Biblical edict that "spare the rod and spoil the child" as a wrong understanding of the Bible.
She called on parents not to exert force and corporal punishment on their children but to rather resort to measured but firm ways to correct the child.
She disclosed that the Ministry of Education would introduce a new student curricular beginning September this year as part of the ongoing education reforms programme and urged all stakeholders in education to take advantage of the new dynamism in education.
According to her, the reforms would inhabit all that was necessary in the modern era of learning and the best standard taught all over the world.
Meteoric rise
The Headmistress of MotherCare, Peace Abasa Addo, said since the inception of the school in 1965, it had witnessed a meteoric rise to become one of the best learning centres in the country.
The school, which now has 687 students and 109 staff, has transformed from a creche of five pupils to accommodate a kindergarten, primary, junior high school department and a senior high school division.
"MotherCare has also been accredited by Cambridge University of the United Kingdom to become an associate of the university and offer courses tailored towards the prestigious institute,” she noted.
She appealed to the state and corporate world to aid the school in acquiring a school bus, water dispensers, canopies and chairs, computers, library books, projectors and science equipment.
Prizes and certificates were awarded to deserving students and staff of the school.
Mr Solomon Adornu, a JHS teacher, was adjudged the Overall Best Worker and received the founder’s prize— the Theodora Asare prize.
There were a plethora of cultural displays from pupils and students to the admiration of guests.
The occasion also witnessed the official opening of a solar inverter for the school.
The plant, pre-financed and installed by NextGen Power Limited, a solar installation and maintenance company, is expected to serve as a buffer for the school's energy needs.
The School Director, Shiela Acquah Asare, officially opened the plant with a pledge to harnesss enough sun energy for the school's energy consumption needs.