ASUNAFO NORTH HONOURS OUTSTANDING TEACHERS (PAGE 40)

FOR the past three years the Asunafo North Municipal Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has not been able to organise its best teacher awards’ ceremony, apparently owing to financial constraints and other logistic problems.
However, the dust finally settled on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 for the ceremony to come off at the forecourt of the Methodist Chapel in Goaso, capital of the municipality, thanks to the Municipal Assembly for providing GH¢5,000 to assist the directorate to procure the needed items for the deserving award winners.
In all, 100 teaching and non-teaching staff, including 50 teachers from deprived schools were awarded at the function. The ceremony was on the theme: ‘‘The Teacher: a Major Partner in Quality Education”.
At the end of the day, the Overall Best Teacher Award went to Mr George Antwi Boasiako of the Asanteman Local Authority L/A Primary School, near Goaso, who received a motorcycle as his prize.
Speaking at the ceremony, the Municipal Director of Education, Mrs Elizabeth De Zouza, said the teacher, a major partner in quality education, deserved to be awarded. She said one major cause of failure of many teaching/learning endeavours was teachers’ frustration and apathy owing to lack of motivation.
Mrs De Zouza noted that, the Best Teacher awards had come to stay, and had gone a long way to avert that gruesome situation that would otherwise had befallen the municipality, adding that the gradual upward improvement in the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) results of 62.7 per cent passes in 2006 to 68.5 per cent in 2007 testified to that assertion.
According to her, when children received quality education, poverty would reduce, health would improve, the status of women would be enhanced and national status would also rise as well as productivity.
Mrs De Zouza emphasised that the future development of nations, including Ghana , therefore, hinged more on the capacity of that nation and individuals to acquire, adapt and advance in relevant knowledge, skills and attitudes.
The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Alhaji Ishak Abubakar Bonsu, disclosed that the municipality had a total number of 971 teachers, adding that there were 92 kindergartens, 92 primary, 51 junior high, two senior high and two public technical schools.
He added that there were also 18 private primary,15 junior high, two commercial and one vocational school in the area.
The Minister of Education, Science and Sports, Prof Dominic Fobih, in a speech read on his behalf, noted that quality education was not achieved by mere availability of classrooms, textbooks and other teaching and learning materials, but through the ingenuity, dedication and commitment of the teacher that would result in the development of a responsible, disciplined and nationalism-oriented citizenry with the requisite knowledge, skills, values and attitudes to become functional and productive.