Reverse JHS qualifying aggregate - Administrator

Mr. Joseph Dzamesi, Administrator of the Sonrise Christian High School on Saturday appealed to government to reverse the qualifying aggregate for Junior High School (JHS) students to Senior High School (SHS) from 45 back to 30.

He said the present 45 meant virtually all JHS students were qualified to be placed into public Senior High Schools and hardly leaving any for the private schools.

Mr. Dzamesi was speaking at the sixth graduation ceremony of the school located in Ho off the Ho-Kpetoe highway.

He said as a result of that directive, Sonrise SHS, despite its academic records, had to struggle this academic year to “even admit 100 students for our first year classes”.

Mr. Dzamesi said the supposition that a good school just as a good product would always attract clients was flawed by the reality of the Ghanaian situation where “the tough economic condition is making a lot of parents focus more on finances rather than quality when deciding on a school for their wards”.

He stressed that “it is almost suicidal to send a student who scored between aggregate 31 and 42 to a 3rd tier, deprived government school”.

“These are students who fundamentally are already weak, and then we turn around and send them to government schools that do not have enough teachers and with poor facilities.

“I think the government should consider partnering with private schools in this regard. We have the resources and the ability to bring the best out of these students.

‘I would, therefore, appeal to the government to revert to posting students up to aggregate 30, so that the rest could find their way to private schools where they have a better chance than government school,” Mr. Dzamesi stated.

He said another potentially negative effect of the policy “of passing everyone from the JHS is that, it lowers the bar and basically removes standards which will ultimately affect student motivation”.

Sonrise Christian High School has well ventilated classrooms, comfortable dormitories for 200 boys and 200 girls, well equipped science and home economics laboratories, well equipped computer laboratory and 60 kva back-up generator and its 600 student capacity dining hall, near completion.

Mr. Dzamesi said the school, established in October 2005 with 132 students and three programmes, now runs virtually all the programmes.

He said academic performance over the years has been good, 99 per cent pass with at least aggregate 24 at the WASCCE in 2011, 93 per cent in 2012 and 64 per cent in 2013.

“We are certainly not happy with our 2013 results, but we are hopeful that the class of 2014 will bring us back to where we belong- the top,” Mr Dzamesi stated.

Ms. Francisca Dzentuh, Chairperson of the school’s Advisory Board said the mission of the school was to provide quality Christian education to young people in Ghana and a vision to build a place to transform lives and become best in Ghana.

She said the graduating class started with 200 students, “but for various reasons, including academic, only 151 made it to the final year to graduate today.”

Dr. Leonard Amekudzi, Lecturer at the Department of Physics at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) who was Guest Speaker, said students needed to be disciplined, focused and sustain their efforts to make it.

He observed that students were using the television and the internet frivolously instead of for advancing their studies.

Bright Amoabeng, Senior School Prefect, praised their teachers for being diligent and the school for its character training.

Dr. Godknows Dorvlo, Lecturer at the University of Health and Allied Sciences in Ho, Chairman of the school’s Parents Teachers Association, urged the students to push on to do further studies.

Sonrise Christian High School is affiliated with the Church of Christ in Ghana and the USA.