Sonrise Christian SHS holds 9th graduation

Sonrise Christian Senior High School, a private educational institution in Ho in the Volta Region, has held its ninth graduation ceremony in honour of 115 students, who passed out of the school last year.

Addressing the ceremony, the Administrator of the school, Mr Joseph Dzamesi, said the school had won the reputation as the best private senior high school (SHS) in the region because of the serene and conducive environment it had offered for teaching and learning.

“At Sonrise we take great pride in providing the best for our students, ensuring that they receive exceptional holistic education at a very affordable cost,” he said.

Appeal

Mr Dzamesi, however, appealed to the government to consider students of private SHSs as beneficiaries of the Free SHS education policy, so that it would  be more inclusive. According to him, that will ensure free secondary education for Ghanaian children in public schools and make it affordable for Ghanaian parents whose children attend private schools.

He contended that such a system had been successfully implemented in the health sector where the government partnered with private health facilities to deliver quality health services to Ghanaians under the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS).

“We believe that a similar system can be implemented in the educational sector where government subsidies would ‘follow’ students irrespective of  where they access education,” he said.

He said despite the fact that recent government policies had made it impossible for private SHSs to compete for quality students from the junior high schools (JHSs), the school continued to perform creditably well at the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), adding that, although the admission grade on the average was beyond aggregate 30, at least 60 per cent of students who graduated from the school each year qualified  for admission to tertiary institutions within their first year of graduation from the school.

Scholarships

Mr Dzamesi announced that the Rockson Dogbegah and Hendricks scholarship scheme had been used to fund tuition and boarding fees for JHS graduates who were brilliant but did not have the financial ability to afford high school education, adding that students with aggregate 6-10 could access full tuition and boarding for three years, while those who scored up to aggregate 12 could access half scholarship for three years.

He also announced that the Richmond Best Awards, sponsored by Clarence and Valle Richmond of Searcy Arkansas, was up to $1,000 out of which $700 would be awarded to the best student in the WASSCE and $300 to the second best student. He said that was designed for the payment of first year university admission fees and only given out upon the presentation of an admission letter from an accredited university.

Mr Dzamesi added that an ultramodern clinic, sponsored by donors from the United States of America, had been constructed for the school to provide primary health care for students.

The Medical Director of the Volta Regional Hospital, Dr John Tampouri, who was the guest speaker at the function, urged the graduates to make good use of opportunities made available to them in all their endeavours.