Two private organisations and an individual from the Ho Municipality have sponsored a Mathematics and Science Clinic for final-year students in the municipality with the view to addressing the dwindling performance of pupils of the area in those two subjects.
About 600 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates drawn from basic schools across the municipality will be taken through intensive Maths and Science classes from now till they write their final examination later in June this year.
Norbsty Service Limited, a Ho-based civil construction firm; Action for Hope Foundation, also a Ho-based organisation; and Mr Obed Agbevoadi, a native of Ho and philanthropist based in Tema, have combined resources to fund the clinic.
The Chief Executive Officer of Action for Hope Foundation, Mr Dickson Pi-Bansah, told the Daily Graphic that they had observed over the years that BECE results in the municipality had been going down in terms of percentage.
“In 2012, we had 51 per cent and we occupied the 90th position out of 151 districts/municipal/metropolitan areas in the country. We realised that we had 37 per cent in Maths and 40 per cent in Science. This calls for action to reverse the trend,” Mr Pi-Bansah said.
For him, it would be counter-productive for the University of Health and Allied Sciences (UHAS) to be set up in the region and the municipality and students from the area would not be able to gain admission to that university.
“With the falling levels of performance in Maths and Science, what is the guarantee that they will gain admission to the university?” he questioned with concern.
According to Mr Pi-Bansah, their move was motivated primarily by the concern of ensuring that products from the area had access to the UHAS in order to build the human resource of the area towards speedy development.
He explained that the project was currently on a pilot basis and that based on its success, it would be replicated in other districts of the region and the nation at large.
Mr Stephen Ahorlu, CEO of Norbsty Services Ltd, stressed the need for the leaders of today to take a keen interest in the holistic education of the younger ones so as to properly prime them for future life, saying anything short of that would be a great disservice that would return to haunt all.
Mr Obed Agbevoadi called for the channelling of resources into the proper education of the younger ones rather than wasting them on needless celebrations and others that did not bring any good to the future of the younger ones.
A number of pupils that the ‘Daily Graphic spoke to were excited about the clinic, which, according to them, had taken them out of their normal school environment to a different setting where they were being taught by different teachers who were adding more to what they had learnt at school.
Emmanuel Mensford Opoku, a final-year pupil of the Ho Police Depot JHS, said he was happy about meeting other pupils from other schools and having to share knowledge with them.
Rosemary Amenyo, also a final-year student, said she had problem with a particular topic in Mathematics but after the first class, she had had answers to her difficulties.
One of the tutors for the clinic, Ms Gertrude Kemetse, who teaches at the Housing JHS, said the project was a step in the right direction as it would go a long way to augment what the children had been taught in their various schools but suggested that in the future ICT should be added to the subjects.
Story: Victor Kwawukume