Mass marches on steadily to provide education in a rural setting

The Mangoase Senior High School (MASS) climaxes activities marking its  22nd anniversary and the first-ever speech and prize-giving day tomorrow with a durbar.

The school, which is in a deprived environment, has not been able to celebrate any anniversary since its inception because of resource constraints.

Previous managements of the school tried on many occasions to celebrate the speech and prize-giving day without success, but the present administration and the board of governors decided to give it a try this year, despite the difficulties in raising funds.

The journey so far has not been easy as the school authorities have had to dig deep into the resources of MASS to organise the event.

A little background of the school will help readers to  appreciate the circumstances under which the school has turned out graduates so far, some of whom have pursued studies in various universities in the country.

The site for the school used to be one of the offices of the Suhum Cocoa Project, a World Bank funded project to revamp the cocoa industry in the Eastern Region in the 1970s.

When the project phased out in the 1980s because the World Bank funding had dried up, all the offices were abandoned, including the one at Tetteh Kofi near Mangoase in the Akuapem North District which today houses the Mangoase Senior High School.

Following the reform of the educational system in the mid-1980s, there was the need to increase the number of secondary schools to accommodate graduates of the junior high school system. That brought about the establishment of community secondary schools in the country.

The District Secretary for Akuapem North at the time, Mr T.K. Okae, spearheaded the agenda to convert the old structures at the Tetteh Kofi offices of the defunct Suhum Cocoa Project into a community secondary school in 1992.

At a durbar on January 23, 1992, the district education officer officially headmaster  of the school, Mr Joseph Aldophus Codjoe, to the gathering.

For four years, Mr Codjoe’s administration worked hard to put the school on level-footing before handing over to Mr E.A. Agyei  who continued from where Mr Codjoe left, and from one headmaster to another, the school has gone through thick and thin to reach where it is now.

With the current board of governors spearheaded by Mr Ransford Tetteh and ably supported by the nine-member PTA executive  led by Mr Victor Doku, the headmaster, Mr S. Agyiri-Nyarko, runs a smooth administration, and no wonder  for the first time, the school is organising its speech and prize-giving day.

Distinguished personalities expected to grace the occasion include Nana Ansah Sasraku II, Mamfehene and Kyidomhene of the Akuapem Traditional Area; Dr Kwabena Adjei, the Chairman of the GETFund Board and National Chairman of the NDC. Professor Samuel Sraku-Nartey, President of the Presbyterian University College, Abetifi-Kwahu, will be the keynote speaker on:  Pursuing quality education in the face of daunting challenges’.

Other personalities who will grace the occasion are the Eastern Regional Minister, Mrs Helen Ntosoo; the Eastern Regional Director of Education, Madam Adraina Kandilige and the Akuapem North Municipal Director of Education, Reverend J. Y. Kissi-Twum.

The headmaster said although it was challenging providing quality education in a deprived rural setting, his team was determined to help form the character of all young people who would want to pursue their secondary education in the school.

Besides the unwillingness of qualified teachers accepting posting to the school, the school also faces infrastructure deficits that do not facilitate effective teaching and learning.

Mr Agyiri-Nyarko, however, stated that the school had come a long way from those early days that it was housed in the district cocoa project offices. Various bodies, he said, had provided support to the school. The Akuapem North Municipal Assembly built a four-unit classroom block in the 1990s, while the PTA built the kitchen and the dining hall.

Mr Agyiri-Nyarko said the GETFund had been generous to provide a 12-unit two-storey classroom block. The fund is supporting the construction of three other projects. These are the boys and girls dormitories and a 12-unit classroom block.

The headmaster appealed to the GETFund to speed up the process of constructing these projects with the release of funds to the contractors.

He said even though the facilities were inadequate in the school, management had found shelter for the boys and girls to use as dormitories. The others who were day students, he said, had found apartments in nearby communities or walked long distances to the school.

According to the headmaster, there were only two bungalows being used by 10 teachers, with some of them perching.

He said teachers and non-teaching staff not housed by the school also lived in villages nearby or in Suhum and Koforidua from where they travelled to and from school on a daily basis.

The school is on a 20 acre land, some of the portions inherited from the Cocoa Services Division, while the PTA purchased the rest from the community.

Mr Agyiri-Nyarko pleaded with the government and well-wishers to come to the aid of the school to provide a  wall, a mechanised borehole, a vehicle for the headmaster and other amenities so that it could provide quality education to the youth in the area.

He also spoke about the need for dining and assembly halls and an improved ICT centre from the present 15 unit personal computers in use in the school.

Mr Agyiri-Nyarko hinted that the school authorities intended to use the first-ever speech and prize-giving day tomorrow, November 30, 2013, to showcase the promise and the challenges facing MASS to provide quality education in a rural setting.