General News of Saturday, 6 April 2013
Source: GNA
Emeritus Metropolitan Catholic Archbishop of Kumasi, Peter Kwasi Sarpong has called on the political leadership of the nation to stop making arbitrary decisions that lower the progress of the nation’s education.
“We have to think of the child, think of Ghana and end the politics”, he said, adding that the situation where changes were made to the educational system just because “you have made promises on the political campaign platform” must not be allowed to continue.
Emeritus Archbishop Sarpong said everything should be done to make sure that there was total de-politicization of education.
He said, he personally for example, did not see the point in abolishing the “Sixth Form”. He also found it wrong the reduction of the years of the Senior High School (SHS) from four to three, and saw the computer placement of students into the SHS as bad and immoral.
He was speaking at the silver jubilee celebration of the “Bishop Sarpong International/Junior High School (JHS)” at Tarkwa-Maakro in Kumasi, an institution he played pivotal role in establishing.
The event was used to honour the retired Metropolitan Archbishop for his deep commitment to scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge.
He was eulogized in a Citation for his ‘hard work, empathy, humanism, thoughtfulness, altruism, honesty and reliability”.
Emeritus Archbishop Sarpong said it was time the nation adopted the tools of education the Catholic Church had used to make its schools the best globally.
Theirs involve holistic formation of the individual – moral, intellectual, spiritual, physical and psychological.
He said the Church was of the conviction that education provided the nourishment that people need.
He underlined the need to ensure discipline in schools and said this should be based on godliness.
The Reverend Father Louis K. Tuffour, the Manager of the School, said their goal was to make it an excellent international school of choice in the Kumasi Metropolis.
Since year 2005, it has been scoring 100 percent passes in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) with many of its candidates scoring single digits.
He said over the last 27 years, it had trained and passed out over 1,000 students who gained admission into SHS and tertiary institutions to become medical doctors, nurses, engineers, architects and other professionals, helping to push forward the nation’s development.
Established in 1985 with only 30 pupils, its population now stands at about 700.