Reverend Ransford Kwesi Nyarko, District Chief Executive (DCE) for Ajumako-Eyan-Essiam, has announced a new scholarship award scheme for excelling students in the area.
The Scheme will benefit all students who score aggregate 06 to 09 in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Speaking at a town hall meeting at Ajumako-Besease, the DCE appealed to pupils in the district to improve upon their academic performance so as to benefit from the scheme.
He said the Assembly will scale-up supervision, teachers’ motivation and provision of logistics while encouraging the youth to take full advantage of Government's free education and skills training programmes to unearth their talent to contribute meaningfully to national development.
He called for increased stakeholder consultations and support towards uplifting education and reducing teenage pregnancies which had derailed the dreams of many young girls in the area.
The DCE was dumbfounded as he received a report from the District Directorate of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) identifying teachers as the lead segment of the population impregnating school girls in the area. He described it as ‘distasteful’
"It is heart-wrenching that teachers who are supposed to protect and inculcate good moral lessons in children have taken the lead in impregnating our young girls in the district."
Reverend Nyarko said the “unprofessional, unethical and pathetic” act by some unscrupulous teachers was a disincentive to Government's efforts at ensuring that all children were educated.
He urged teachers to desist from any unprofessional attitudes and conduct that tend to affect academic performance, which consequently affect the image of the teaching profession.
Adding that,they must exhibit high level of self-control, discipline and live morally desirable upright lives to be emulated by students but not to exploit the innocence of young girls sexual pleasures.
Mrs Ama Baiden Awuku of the District Directorate of Education called on Ghanaians to provide the needed suggestions that would aid the implementation of the Double Track System.
The system, according to her had worked successfully in other places and the decision by government was not out of the blues but from critical analysis of the benefits.
She said government’s plan to implement the system was to ensure that no youth was left behind, and added that, about 180,000 students were most likely to get admissions into schools in September when the academic calendar begins.