SCHOOLS MAY APPLY TO TAKE MORE THAN 500

Friday, September 24, 2004
culled from the Daily Graphic

The government has directed that heads of second cycle institutions who have facilities to admit more than 500 students this academic year should apply to their respective regional directors of education for consideration.

It said the decision of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to limit admissions to 500 was to prevent congestion in the classrooms and dormitories and avoid health hazards among the students.

The Minister of Information, Nana Akomea, explained that the directive was not meant to create unnecessary anxieties for parents looking for admission for their wards, adding that “upon approval by the Regional Directorate of Education after inspecting the facilities of the schools so concerned, the heads would be allowed to exceed the stipulated number”.

He said out of the 497 senior secondary schools in the country, only 64 admitted students above 500 last academic year.Nana Akomea said majority of the school admitted less than 500 students and indicated that the directive from the GES was only to remind those with limited facilities not to overstretch them at the expense of effective teaching and learning.

He expressed appreciation for the difficult situation of both school authorities, parents and students and noted that the GES was concerned about congestion in the classrooms, dormitories and dining halls. Nana Akomea said as a result of the congestion in the dormitories of most schools, the authorities had to join two beds to enable three persons to use them, while the students took their meals in turns.

He said already some schools had written to their regional directorates of education to be allowed to admit more students. These include Prempeh College, which had written to take 100 more, Opoku Ware Secondary School, extra 50, Konongo Odumasi Secondary School, extra 100 and St Louis Secondary School, extra 100.

Nana Akomea said last year, St Augustine’s Secondary School admitted 483 students, Mfantsipim 534, Ghana Secondary Technical School 369, Prempeh College 753, Opoku Ware Secondary School, 589 and Aggrey Memorial Secondary School, 990 students.He said it was unfortunate that facilities in the schools, particularly the so-called first class schools, did not match the intake, in some of the schools saying that this informed the decision of the government to upgrade a secondary school in each district into a model school.

Nana Akomea said the irony of the pressure on the so-called good schools was that many community schools had empty classrooms.He expressed the hope that as soon as praticable the government would be able to improve the facilities in the community secondary schools to make them attractive to the students in the locality.