Direct Aid Director urges children to pursue studies

Mr. Ahmed Sheikh Omar, the Ghana Country Director of Direct Aid, formerly Africa Muslim agency has called on all students to take their studies seriously and obey their parents and teachers at home and school respectively.

He said this after he paid an official visit to one of the boarding schools being run in the country at Tamale in the Northern region known as Abubakar Sidique Center. He expressed satisfaction over the performance of the students in school and the boarding houses and asked them to keep it up. Similar institutions being run at Adenta in Accra, Kumasi in Ashanti, Cape Coast in the Central region is meant to provide some 746 students free tuition, boarding and feeding.

Although they are catered for by direct aid, the students are allowed to go and live with their foster parents and families during holidays. Direct aid constructed two of the four schools in the country during the fiscal year of 2013 in Adenta and Tamale.

The projects involve two secondary schools and in those schools there are 369 boarding students and 120 regular students from the surrounding communities enrolled for 2012/2013 year.

He said his organization will construct more of such schools in the future and organize programs for teachers to improve their knowledge in teaching. In the year 2013, a total number of 30 teachers from all schools were trained in a short course under the theme: “quality education and evaluation” to upgrade their performance as well as to address the country’s transformation plan.

He further asserted that Direct Aid will continue to provide support conducive to the overall mental, physical, social and psychological growth and development of the students by bringing them up to widen their horizons through formal secular education. In doing so, the organization has provided sponsorship to students promoted after taking part in national examinations organized by the West Africa Examination Council to be able to pursue higher education. Currently, 60 students have been chosen to benefit from this scheme in our tertiary institutions in Ghana.

Contrary to the belief that Islam does not have interest in promoting education, Mr. Omar said that cannot be true because, the lord ordered the prophet to read a situation that laid credence to the need for mankind to pursue knowledge to widen our horizons.