The Director of Corporate Affairs and Information Technology of the Ghana Institution of Engineering, Mohammed Issah has advised parents to prioritise their wards’ education instead of spending lavishly on social programmes such as funerals.
He said education was the best investment and legacy parents could bequeath to their children.
Mr Issah gave the advice at the 2018/2019 second annual speech and prize and graduation ceremony on the Tot to Teen School at Adenta in the La Nkwatanang Municipality in Accra last Saturday.
The programme which saw nice cultural and choreographic displays and recital of poems from the pupils was on the theme ‘Championing Academic Excellence through Modern Trends of Holistic and Qualitative Education’.
Some pupils of the school at the graduation ceremony were presented with books and certificates for putting up sterling academic performance.
Mr Issah who was the guest speaker expressed regret that some parents did not pay their wards’ school fees, but spent on funerals and buying of new clothes.
This, he said, affected the morale and performance of children in the school because children, whose parents did not pay their fees and were sacked and often ridiculed by their peers.
The Director of Corporate Affairs and Information Technology further entreated parents to use their local dialect with their children at home instead of the English language.
“Research around the world showed that children who were fluent in their local dialect did better in school than their colleagues who cannot speak their mother tongue,” he said.
He lauded the government for introducing a new educational curriculum and the introduction of standard testing right from lower primary, but warned that teachers should not focus on teaching students just for standard testing exams, saying that could defeat the purpose of the new curriculum.
Mr Issah entreated teachers to adopt modern and practical ways of teaching instead of focusing on “rote learning.”
The Head Teacher of the Tot To Teen School, Mr Emmanuel Kwesi Arkyin-Quansah in his address said the school was among the first schools to be established in Adenta in September 1995 and has provided quality basic education to the children at Adenta and its environs.
He said since its establishment, the school authorities had made continuous efforts to realise its vision and mission of nurturing “lively, inquiring, discerning and creative pupils and students.”
Mr Arkyin-Quansah commended the students for their hard work and urged them to continue to learn hard to climb higher the academic ladder.
The Head Teacher commended parents of the pupils and students for their role in placing the school in an enviable position.
By Kingsley Asare
