President Nana Akuffo Addo has reiterated the need to invest in the future by laying a firm foundation which has quality and accessible education playing a crucial component.
He said it was therefore his government determination to ensure that maximum investments went into providing quality and free access for all Ghanaian children to enable them realize their potentials.
He said in doing this, through his governement’s free senior high school programme that has so far benefited over 1.6 million student, all stakeholders should come on board by foregoing extreme partisanship in the implementation of the policy.
President Akuffo Addo stated this while addressing the climax of the 70th anniversary of the Tamale Senior High school over the weekend, as the special guest of honor.
Past students including Vice President; Alhaji Dr. Mahamoud Bawumia, Miniters of state, politicians, former headmsters, students, parents as well as traditional rulers joined in the celebration which was held under the theme: “Tamasco @ 70: leading secondary education in Northern Ghana.”
Extablished in 1951 as the first secondary school in the northern territories, with 20 boys, Tamasco now has 3,638 students – 1682 being females with a staff strenth of over 200.
President Akuffo said as government does it part by providing school infrastructure alongside rolling policies and programmes to meeting global standards for education, heads of schools and teachers must also ensure that quality wasn’t compromised in anyways.
The President responded to a plea by the first female senior prefect of Tamasco for a language laboratory saying “that was in order and I will bring it into fruition” in addition to a request for a bus and pickup truck to ease the transport challenges faced by the school.
President of the Old Tamascans Association, Lawyer Mahamoud recounted the support being given by the association globally towards uplifting the school.
He however tasked the administrators to pay more attention to science and math in order to get to the finals of the National Science and Math quiz in the near future.
Earlier, the Headmaster of Tamasco, Rev. Edward Azeeka in his welcoming statement said the school was working fervently to address the parity gap with equal enrolment figures.
He commended their benefactors – government, MTN Ghana, and old students including Ibrahim Mahama for various infrastructure projects for the school.
Rev. Azeeka however appealed to government to intervene for other stale projects to be completed to match the increasing numbers of students so that they can return to a single track system by early next year.
An old boy and international diplomat, Dr. Mohamed Ibn Chambas was the chairman for the occasion.
A keyhighlight of the event was a drill by Tamasco’s cadet corp, under the command of a female, which said to be the oldest in the sub of the Sahara, apart from South Africa.
Prizes and scholarships were awarded to deserving students and staff of the institution.
Story by: Nelson Adanuti | www.diamondfmonline.com
