Prince Kwame Afum, UENR Counselling Psychologist
St. Ambrose College of Education at Dormaa Akwamu in the Bono Region has initiated internal programmes to deal with psychological problems affecting its students to improve academic performance and quality of students produced by the college.
To this end, the counselling unit of the college, in collaboration with the University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), has organised effective study skills clinic for Level 100 students.
The students were taken through psychological test, for which they were scored and interpreted for the individual students to help them identify their study skills.
The skills clinic is aimed at helping the students to identify their learning capacities and adopt the best learning style.
Psychological test
Speaking during the psychological test, the Vice Principal of the College, Mr George Gyan, said counseling plays an integral part in the life of every student, hence the need to organise the study skills clinic for them.
In his view, it is important for students to be exposed to the road they are journeying, saying the skills clinic would help the students to start and complete with good grades.
“You are now embarking on an academic journey in this college. There will ups and downs in this journey that is why we want to expose the road for you,” Mr Gyan stated.
He asked the students to take an active role in this programme by providing their full cooperation in order to ensure that it runs well.
Academic excellence
Madam Bertha Azaare Akuta, the college’s counsellor, stated that the college’s objective is to educate and train highly qualified, responsible, skilled, and morally upright teachers with some key values such as student attention, academic excellence, and gender responsiveness.
She said that the college’s counselling team, in partnership with the UENR, organised an effective study skills clinic for level 100 students in pursuit of those key objectives.
Madam Akuta believes the exercise would help each student to identify learn effectively to achieve academic excellence.
She therefore entreated them to participate fully and give accurate information about themselves so that the right categorisation could be done to help them know the best learning skills to suit them as individuals.
Poor study habits
The Counselling Psychologist of the UENR, Prince Kwame Affum, went over themes, including effective studies, types of study skills, methods to follow for good learning outcomes, how to read for information and understanding, causes of poor study habits, and earning style inventory with the students.
Poor study habits, according to him, are caused by poor reading skills, unplanned and sporadic attempts at study, inability to cope with anxiety, inability to develop an argument in a reasoned and coherent manner, failure to use teachers’ comments, lack of systematic revision plans, and inadequate strategies for tackling examination papers.
Mr Affim urged the students to devise an effective learning strategy in order to attain their academic goals
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