Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum cuts tape to commission a facility in the school
The Minister of Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has urged all Ghanaians to keep their hopes high, and support the government’s transformation agenda to help overcome the challenging times.
He said the various economic interventions and education reforms, which are being implemented in the country, would soon lead to the transformation of the nation’s economy.
Dr Adutwum made the call when he delivered an address at the 65th Speech and Prize-Giving Day of Okuapemman School at Akuapem Akropong in the Eastern Region. It was under the them “Sustaining Quality Inclusive Education in Ghana: The Role of Technology and Infrastructure”.
He indicated that the theme rightly connects with the vision of President Akufo-Addo in improving inclusive quality education for the socio-economic transformation of the nation.
STEM
The Education Minister said due to the lack of sufficient relevant 21st Century skills anchored in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) among the current generation, there is the need to ensure that Ghanaian children participate fully in the 4th Industrial Revolution.
“This will enable the nation to reposition the entire education system to produce a critical mass of assertive and empowered Ghanaian students equipped with the essential skills for socio-economic transformation,” he noted.
He explained that to deliver the finest possible STEM education, the government is building ten STEM Senior High Schools. That, he said, is in addition to extensively restructuring many Senior High Schools across the nation with the necessary learning instruments in the laboratories and classrooms.
“Several of these STEM Senior High Schools, including those in Abomoso in the Eastern area, Bosomtwe in the Ashanti, and Awaso in the Western north, among other locations, have already begun teaching and learning,” he revealed.
He added that the construction of the Accra STEM Academy is another government initiative which will provide instruction in problem-solving, creativity, communication, collaboration, data literacy, digital literacy, and computer science to students in kindergarten through high school.
Commendation
The Headmaster of Okuapemman School, Rev. Richard Koranteng Afari, praised the government for the great effort it has been making towards improving the infrastructure in the school as well as other support to the school.
He recounted the various effort made by the government through the Ministry of Education and GeTFund to expand the school’s physical infrastructure and facilities to accommodate the increased number of admitted students.
“In fulfilment of the President’s promise during our 60th Anniversary, a newly refurbished and equipped state of the art Science Laboratory is near completion. We have equally received bunker beds and desks for our dormitories and classrooms respectively, a beneficiary of a Pickup and a 60-seater bus that was donated to schools across the country as a means of supporting the provision of necessary logistics for effective administration and academic work,” he added.
Challenges
Rev. Koranteng Afari enumerated some of the challenges confronting the school as the poor roads. These, he noted, had been affecting the easy movement by both teachers and students, inadequate classroom facilities leading to congestion, poor library and Information and Communication Technology laboratory facilities,
He explained that although Okuapemman School was the first school in the country to have its Visually Impaired Persons (students) write their WASSCE using computers, their Resource Library had become small relative to the increased number of visually impaired students in the School and therefore called for expansion of the facility.
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