By: Nicholas Osei-Wusu
A former Director General of the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation, Professor Kwame Karikari has challenged the staff, students and other interested parties in the Banka Community Day Senior High School in the Ashanti region to qualify for and make a string case in the National Science and Math Quiz in the next two years.
These stakeholders must as well pool resources and synergize their efforts to push the school from its current status into the bracket of one of the Grade ‘A’ schools in the country.
Prof. Karikari assured that, he will do his best as a Board Chairman and a native of the host community of the school to create the environment required for improved academic and extra curricula performances of the school.
‘As someone who has lived all my life as a journalist or media work right from school, I’ll come and establish a School Newspaper to encourage reading and writing aming you students’, Prof. Karikari announced.
He was addressing a durbar of the stakeholders of the school at Banka in the Asante Akyem South Municipality in the Ashanti region.
Professor Kwame Karikari, who is also Chairman of the School’s Board of Governors, called on particularly citizens of the host community, Banka, and the beneficiary towns, home or abroad, to mobilize resources to support the school.
He advised the students to learn hard if they really aspire for prominence in society in their lives.
The Headmaster, Chris Appiah-Mensah noted that, in spite of the many challenges undermining progress of the school, some modest successes are being realized academically and in extra curricular activities
He disclosed “in 2021, we targeted to get ‘A1’-‘C6’ Science 97.4% but when the results came in, we’d 100%. English Language, we targeted 37.5% but we’d 55.7%, Mathematics we’d 100% which he targeted.”
Mr. Appiah-Mensah however appealed to all the stakeholders to come to the aid of the school to address its challenges including a residential facility for the students so as to attract more students.
The Asante Akyem South Municipal Chief Executive, Alexander Frimpong, assured the continuous support to the development of the school even in the midst of limited available resources.
The Asante Akyem South Municipal Assembly presented bulbs to help lighting up the school’s premises in the night in addition to a set of jerseys and a football to encourage physical education among the students.
About BANKASS
Built and absorbed into the public educational stream in 2016, the Banka Community Day Senior High School, BANKASS, located at Banka in the Asante Akyem South Municipality of Ashanti, offers easy access and affordable second cycle education programmes to junior high school graduates from at least eight communities in the municipality who would otherwise traveled long distances to pursue further education beyond JHS.
With an initial student enrolment of 37, BANKASS now has 516 students offering various programmes including General Arts.
This is far below its admission capacity of one thousand 500. The low enrolment is caused by a myriad of challenges.
The authorities have blamed it on the unavailability of a boarding facility to accommodate the students from afar. Presently, the unused two upper floor classrooms are being used as residence for the girls as hostel while the boys live in a nearby private facility.
According to the students, even though they enjoy one free meal each day, their parents are responsible for their upkeep on campus, though under supervision by the school’s authorities.
Similarly, the school is compelled to look elsewhere for sporting facilities to train for inter municipal and regional competitions due to the lack of sports development infrastructure.
The Students Representatives Council, SRC’s Week-long celebration therefore was used to draw attention to such challenges while bringing together the key interested parties to ascertain the issues so as to pool resources to augment government’s assistance for progress.
The climax of the event therefore brought together the Municipal Assembly, Board of Governors, traditional and opinion leaders from the beneficiary communities, present and past staff and students.
The Ghana Association of Table Tennis led by its President, Mawuko Afadzinu took advantage to inaugurate a Table Tennis Club for the school with some individuals and groups donating logistics for the game.
The visitors were also conducted around a field for sporting activities under construction.
The SRC used the occasion to recognize and appreciate the support of the schools Headmaster, Christopher Appiah-Mensah and the Housemaster, John Atta with citations.
A former President of the Ghana Football Association, GFA, Kwasi Nyantakyi also promised the school goal posts and nets for the soccer field when its construction os completed.
