Gabby Asumin
28 June 2006
THE OLD STUDENTS Association of the Aggrey Memorial Zion Secondary School (AMOSA), Cape Coast, has recommended that as a matter of urgency the Headmaster of the school, Mr. Appiah Dankwa, be removed to forestall the rapidly declining academic standards in the school.
The AMOSA has further recommended that both the Board of Governors and the Parent/Teacher Association (PTA) should be dissolved and replaced by an interim administration until substantive officers are appointed to the two bodies.
Speaking at a press conference in Accra, the President of the Old Students Association, Mr. Kow Yaidoo, alleged that the old students over the years have expressed concern over the declining state of affairs in the school.
He further alleged that all those concerns were communicated to the Headmaster, but added, "Unfortunately, the current Headmaster has turned a deaf ear to these concerns and has not only worsened the situation but also exhibited complete disregard and disrespect to the old students notwithstanding the many projects AMOSA has sponsored in the school".
He continued, "It is alleged that a few million cedis to the Headmaster could offer your ward an admission to the school. All these have resulted in many old students withholding any further support and assistance to the school until the system is cleaned out".
Enumerating problems confronting the school, Mr. Yaidoo alleged that over the years, reports of students' indiscipline have been rising due to high student population, which he said was in contravention of the directives of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
He disclosed that currently, the school has a student population over 3,200, thereby making it the largest student population in any second cycle school in the country. That the annual intake was in excess of 900 students, he said, was above the GES's recommended maximum number of students per school.
He added that Aggrey Memorial Zion Secondary School unfortunately has always had bad reports such as promiscuity among students in and out of campus, cases of armed robbery, wee smoking, and truancy among others.
According to Mr. Yaidoo, much of the school's infrastructure facilities have broken down largely as a result of over population. Citing examples, he alleged that "Presently, dormitories are seriously over-crowded and students not only sleep in pairs on single beds, but also on floors".
Mr. Yaidoo stated that the dangers associated with over-crowded students included, homosexuality and lesbianism and called on all caring parents to join them to liberate their wards from such immoral act.
Other dangers associated with over-crowding, according to the AMOSA President, were heat and discomfort, which he said, had necessitated some of the students to sleep in the open and in the classrooms at night.
Apart from the infrastructure problems confronting the school, Mr. Yaidoo, in addition, enumerated a very poor academic performance of the school, which could only be compared to a village secondary school without teachers.
For example, he disclosed that "On the results from the July 2005 Senior Secondary Certificate Examination, out of the over 900 candidates presented for the core English examinations, 608 or 65% failed with aggregates E or F; only one person got an 'A'. With this same number who took the core mathematics examination, 553 or 61.4% failed, getting aggregates E or F.
Their performance in some elective subjects like in Economics was even worse.
For example, according to Mr. Yaidoo, during the year under consideration, as much as 84% of the students who sat for this subject failed with aggregates E or F, representing about 46% of the previous year's result.
He said it was incredible that there existed a Board of Governors to oversee the administration of the school, alleging that the Board had allowed things to deteriorate to this level and that the old students were holding them responsible for the degeneration of the school.
He added that their investigations revealed that majority of the Board members have been on the Board over a decade in contravention of GES's directives, which states that a Board member should not serve two three-term academic years.
In his conclusion, Mr. Yaidoo stressed that the large population of the school were the major causes of all the problems confronting the once renowned institution in the Central Region.
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