The Ridge Church School yesterday passed out 91 graduands during its 64th Speech and Prize Giving Day ceremony held in Accra.
The ceremony was held under the theme, ‘COVID-19: A driver of innovation of schools?’
Speaking on the theme, the chairperson of the Accra Ridge Church Council, MsAbigail Armah, explained that the hospitality and educational sector were the most affected during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This, she said, called for the need to finding new and innovative ways of delivering on their services.
Ms Armah underscored the vital role played by Information Technology (IT) during the pandemic period, as schools had to resort to E-Learning in order to sustain the teaching and learning process.
According to Ms Armah, the introduction of E-Learning had eliminated time and space limitation and had led to the restructuring of the educational system which had resulted in improved learners competencies, equity and access, motivation, effectiveness and sustainability.
She, however, was of the opinion that despite the enormous benefits that E-Learning provided for students and teachers, it had come with its own challenges such as lack of logistics, erratic power supply, unstable internet connections, unavailability of a quiet and private workspace.
The pandemic, she explained had brought about an educational revolution, but added that “the adverse situation far outweighs the benefits indicating that there is more room for improvement.”
The headmistress of the school, Mrs Nana Ama Acheampomaa Badasu, said the outbreak of COVID-19 had a telling effect on the various academic and non-academic activities of the school, and as a result, the school had to adopt new strategies of doing things.
Mrs Badasu noted that about 40 students tested positive for COVID-19 during the year and as a result the school co-operated with parents who notified them of the cases through phone calls, emails, and letters in order to mitigate its spread.
The school, she said, also contacted the Korley Klottey Health Directorate anytime the school recorded cases of the COVID-19 virus among students to conduct contact tracing.
“We also contacted the Korley Klottey Health Directorate anytime we had cases and they quickly came to the school to contact trace the affected classes and gave strong feedback,” Mrs Badasu said.
BY BENJAMIN ARCTON-TETTEY
