St Augustine’s College to celebrate 86 years with focus on Leadership and self-development in the 21st Century
The 86th Speech and Prize-Giving Day of St. Augustine’s College, Cape Coast, has been launched at a well-attended ceremony at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel in Accra.
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School authorities, St. Augustine’s Past Students Union (APSU) National Executives and a wide array of Old Boys spanning decades, as well as representatives of some other Central Region schools, interacted with a joviality that the passing years or current stations of life cannot dim.
Next Speech Day
For the next speech day to be held in March 2016, the 1991 Year Group of the premier Catholic second-cycle institution in Ghana has chosen the renovation of the College’s dining-hall at a cost of GH¢400,000 as their anniversary project. The choice of project goes to underscore the leadership of proper nutrition, provided in a conducive environment, to the physical and intellectual development of the fast-growing adolescent boy.
For close to a century, St Augustine's College has turned out men who have had a great impact on societies and enterprises, both at home and abroad. Countless numbers of APSUnians have contributed, and are contributing, to making radical and exciting changes to the way we live and work in human societies.
It is in recognition of this spirit of enterprise and leadership that the 1991 Year Group, as hosts for the 86th Speech and Prize-giving day, has chosen the theme, “Leadership and Self-Development in the 21st Century.”
Guest Speaker
In his speech, Vice-President and Head of Stakeholder Relations of Goldfields Ghana Limited, Member of the 1991 Year Group and Guest Speaker of the function, Mr. David Johnson, said the theme underscores the Group’s strong belief that the solutions we require as a nation will not only come from our political leaders; but the individual’s role in his ability to positively influence situations and outcomes in his environment was also crucial.
Still, from the late 20th to the dawn of the 21st Century, transformational leadership has been touted by many leading lights of the Continent and the world stage as the missing-link in the total development of Ghana and Africa at large. As has been rightly theorised by the cognoscenti of global political economics, the agenda of nation-building rises or falls on leadership; so much so that a traditional Tunisian proverb paints a credible scenario that a flock of sheep led by a lion would prevail in battle against a pride of lions led by a sheep.
So, a cursory look at nations that are well advanced in technological and human development indices shows a long line of committed leaders or one or two radically transformational trailblazers who have championed the agenda of nation-building at critical moments of their statehood.
In our context of Third World nations, mention can be made of Mahatma Gandhi, the Indian independence and socio-moral icon, Lee Kwan Yew of Singapore, the mid-twentieth century rulers of South Korea, the late Nelson Mandela of South Africa and our own Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah, as relevant examples of transformational leaders.
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Grandmasters of developmnet
These men were not only titans of emancipation but also grandmasters of the complex chess game of delivering socioeconomic development to their people. In most cases, they created the enabling environment for citizens to thrive in other fields of leadership like business and education.
Such leaders who brought transformational change were not the rookie or run-of-the-mill frontman; they were visionaries who, from the onset of their respective careers, wished upon a start of persistent and unrelenting self-development.
The tough times Nkrumah had to endure as a student in the U.S., Gandhi’s trials as a young lawyer in South Africa and the unyielding engagement of Mandela with the apartheid establishment, leading to his twenty-seven-year imprisonment just for demanding equality in his own homeland, are all pointers to the homework of self-development the legends of leadership had to put themselves through before they could be accounted capable of becoming the historic change-makers they are still celebrated for becoming.
The lesson from this brief case study of the career trajectory followed by the great transformational leaders is that what they became and subsequently achieved is not beyond anyone who applies himself/herself to unrelenting self-development. Mr. Johnson echoed this sentiment in his speech.
“Most of the men and women we idolize were like you and I. As a matter of fact, some even had less resources than we do. But they taught and developed themselves to be the people we have grown to love and admire.
“We are fortunate enough to be growing up in world where information is abundant. Unlike generations before us, our challenge is not the lack of information, but rather too much of it. We can access all the wisdom of this world through mobile telephony, and the magic of the Internet,” Mr. Johnson said.
Threat to leadership
Still, the Guest Speaker was quick to identify the singular threat to leadership and self-development in our nation today.
“I am blessed with two little boys, and I cannot help but worry everyday about the Ghana that I will leave behind for them…the political and social structures that are broken, the morals that are fast eroding, and the love for country that is simply non-existent.”
Yet, in concluding, Mr. Johnson made the observation that our individual and collective circumstance was not an altogether lost cause as he pointed the way forward:
“But we don’t have to strive to change this world or try to make it a better place. We just have to change ourselves and make ourselves better. And once we do that, the world would change through us, and will become a better place for all of us.”
In his welcome address, Mr. Robert Orraca-Tetteh, Convener of APSU ’91 said, “Eighty-six years in the life of any institution is significant… And as part of the 1991 Year Group’s demonstrable commitment to [the school], we have already begun the renovation of the College Dining Hall, an edifice which over the years has evolved and contributed legends and nicknames like “ajalo”, “palawa” and "Bonuma" to the vast school days’ folklore of St. Augustine’s College, Cape Coast.”