A retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Jones Dotse, has reiterated the need for the Free Senior High School (FSHS) programme to be fine-tuned to enhance its sustainability and prevent it from collapsing in the future.
He said the increasing number of students the policy had been attracting over the years threatened its sustainability, hence the need to fine-tune it to cater for that.
Justice Dotse made the remarks as the guest speaker of the 72nd anniversary speech and prize-giving day celebrations of the Kpando Senior High School (KPASEC) in the Volta Region last Saturday.
The ceremony was organised and sponsored by the 2000-Year Group in honour of its 25th anniversary celebrations.
It was on the theme, “Nurturing Discipline, Inspiring Excellence: A Collective Responsibility of Parents and Teachers”.
The retired judge said that although the FSHS programme was laudable, having offered a lot of children the opportunity to attend SHS, it still had to be looked at again.
Advice
He proposed establishing elite SHSs that would be expanded to include parents able to pay boarding fees, as well as more day SHSs, which would provide one hot meal daily for students.
Justice Dotse advised parents not to shirk their responsibilities to their students and the school management.
He urged them to collaborate closely with the school management to produce good results for the children.
He also entreated teachers not to concentrate only on the examination results but to consider the process to ensure that all the students under their control were brought along together.
To the students, he told them that discipline was the foundation of authentic leadership.
“Uphold the virtues of integrity and avoid shortcuts to build a bright future for the country,” he said.
Appreciation
He was grateful for the efforts of the school's alumni in providing various infrastructure facilities and social amenities on the school compound.
Justice Dotse, also an old student of KPASEC, said he was in contact with his 1969-Year Group to partner the 2001-Year Group to see what project they could do for the school.
The Headmaster of the school, Charles Apreku, said that giving back to the community had been a strong spirit among the alumni and had resulted in the provision of various infrastructure facilities and social amenities on the school compound.
Due to that, he said KPASEC, which was gradually turning into a girls' school, had excellent girls-friendly facilities that were making their stay very comfortable.
“Out of a population of 3,533 students, we have 2,070 girls,” he said.
Mr Apreku called for a closer relationship among the stakeholders, especially parents, non-governmental organisations and the Ghana Education Service (GES) to raise the bar of education in the region.
