Past students (Nabia) of the Navrongo Senior High School (NAVASCO) in Ghana and across the globe will converge on their alma mater at Navrongo on October 19 to climax the annual speech and prize giving day. The aim is to reinvigorate the spirit of academic excellence in the school.
The occasion will also be used to launch a year-long series of activities to commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the school which was opened on September 30, 1960 with pioneering 66 students and a number of staff headed by J.K. Fiergbor of blessed memory.
On October 26, 1960 the first President of Ghana, Dr Kwame Nkrumah visited the school and wrote in the log book “This school has a future. I shall watch its progress with great interest.”
The theme for the 60th anniversary celebration is “Sustaining 60 of Quality Education in NAVASCO -the Role of Stakeholders.
The school authorities will seek to eulogise past headmasters, notably Mr Fiergbo,Dr Y.D Agyeman Dickson, Rev. Robin Crawford, James Ramsey, Colin George MacDonald, A.A. Abem, David Adeenze-Kangah, later became Deputy Electoral Commisioner, Ms Katumi Fuseini, P.K.Tangonyire and late Francisca Yizura among others, for their roles in maintaining academic excellence that has reflected in past students of NAVASCO shining in their various fields of endeavours across the world.
Speaking on the choice of the theme, the Vice National President of the past students who are known as Nabia (princes and princesses), Ibrahim Alabira, former Member of Parliament for Mion Constituency in Northern Region, said when the school was opened in 1960 nobody expected that such quality education would emanate from NAVASCO, in view of the school’s geographically location in rural northern Ghana.
“We have proven over the years that NAVASCO is a high-quality school comparable with any other school in Ghana. We want to sustain and maintain this high standard to demonstrate that quality education can happen up there in the north. We have always excelled academically and that explains why students from the southern part of Ghana were trooping to NAVASCO.”
He explained that education continues to be the best tool for poverty eradication and stressed on the need to sustaining quality education across the country.
At the Speech and Prize-Giving Day celebration and the 20th anniversary celebration of the school in 1980, one of NAVASCO’s most celebrated headmaster, Mr MacDonald, told the gathering “NAVASCO has gained a nation-wide reputation in spite of its difficulties. It was Mr Crawford’s avowed aim to make this school ‘the Achimota of the north’ and I think we can justly claim that this has now been achieved, If one can judge from the large numbers of students who apply to come here for sixth form, many of them from distant parts of the country.
“In 1978 NAVASCO had more students admitted to University of Ghana, Legon, than any other school in the country, Mr MacDonald said in his speech nearly four decades ago.
All is not rosy for the NAVASCO, Assistant Headmaster in charge of Administration, Robert A. Kampusi says lack of fence wall around the school remains a major challenge in view the development taking place on the fringes of the school, adding that the school lacks a bus and also needs additional dormitory and classroom blocks to match up with the enrollment.
The School’s crest is a made up of a horn, representing the spirit of bravery and strength with the Latin phrase Lux Borealis, meaning “The light of the North.”
By Salifu Abdul-Rahaman
CAPTION–A section of past students of NAVASCO
