Use oil revenue to support education – Blay-Amihere
Mr Kabral Blay-Amihere, Chairman of the National Media Commission, has called on government to earmark a percentage of the expected oil revenue to support education.
He said this would ensure equity and justice in the sharing of the gains from the sector and also because everybody would benefit so long as they went to school or sent their children to school.
According to him, the high expectation of the people would also be met since people would feel the impact of the gains directly.
Mr Blay-Amihere said this when he addressed the 64th Anniversary Speech and Prize Giving-Day ceremony of the West Africa Senior High School (WASS), held at its Campus at Adenta, a suburb of Accra on Saturday.
The colourful ceremony, spiced by choreography performances and music by the school’s choir and an acapela group, was attended by stakeholders of the education sector, heads of sister secondary schools within and outside the Accra Metropolis, politicians, parents, students and old-students of WASS.
Over 20 students, who excelled in their various fields of study including hard working teachers, were presented with awards.
Mr Blay-Amihere said setting aside a percentage of the oil revenue in aid of education would be the best legacy government could give out from the oil sector because it would ensure availability of manpower needed for the country’s development.
He said the increasing number of students without a corresponding expansion in infrastructure, demanded a drastic measure to address the inadequate infrastructural problems and provision of other necessary logistics to enhance teaching and learning in the country.
Mr Blay-Amihere said similar intervention was made in the cocoa sector in times past and which recorded much success, adding this should inform the use of the oil revenue.
Turning attention to the welfare of teachers, he called on government to make every effort to ensure that teachers enjoyed their work adding that teachers should enjoy the reward of their efforts on earth but not in heaven as had always been said.
Mr Blay-Amihere said “Teachers are the pivot around, which education revolves. You can have all the facilities but without teachers, such facilities will become meaningless” and called for respect for the efforts of teachers in the development of the country.
He challenged students to brace the storm and make good use of the investment made on them to enable them to achieve their aims and make the country proud.
He called on parents to complement the efforts of teachers by providing the needs of their wards to ensure smooth academic work.
Mrs Lady Queene Asiedu-Akrofi, Headmistress of WASS, called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to restore the school to its original status as a boarding school.
“I cannot understand why WASS, which was a boarding school at Accra New Town before it was upgraded into a model school and relocated to Adenta, should not have a boarding facility” she said.
She expressed gratitude to government for selecting WASS as one of the 160 Senior High Schools to benefit from the first phase of the construction of a six-unit classroom block to allow for space to aid admission of students in August this year.
Mrs Aseidu-Akrofi announced that the school recorded improvement in the performance of its candidates in the 2009 West Africa Senior School Certificate Exams and added that more was being done to further improve the records.
Alhaji Sorogo, Member of Parliament for Abokobi-Madina called for institution of an award for best French student in the school to encourage learning of the language.
He promised to sponsor such an award.
Source: GNA