2 weeks ago
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A Professor of Public Health Nutrition at the University of Ghana, Legon, Professor Richmond Nii Okai Aryeetey, has urged management of Accra Academy to prioritise the leadership development of its students over many of the subjects that are taught in the school.
The prioritisation of the leadership development of students, according to Prof. Aryeetey, would ensure that school continued to produce the visionary leaders it had produced over the past years.
Prof. Aryeetey was speaking in Accra at the weekend at the 93rd anniversary speech and prize giving day organised by the 1993 year – group of the school.
The event was on the theme: ‘Accra Academy Legacy of Excellence; Developing Visionary Leaders for Tomorrow,’ and had in attendance headmasters/headmistress and assistant headmasters/ headmistresses from other Senior High Schools, old students, and other dignitaries.
He explained that it was important for teachers who taught various subjects to understand and recognise that they were not only teaching the students but were shaping and orienting their minds to assume future leadership roles.
Prof. Aryeetey said that for the school to continue producing visionary leaders, it must encourage risk taking, creativity, and critical thinking among students to enable them to develop innovative ideas.
Furthermore, he urged parents, teachers, management of the school, and alumni to lead by example for students to emulate and also create an atmosphere of acceptance of diverse opinions to enable students to celebrate and accommodate different perspectives.
For his part, the Managing Director of Prudential Bank Limited, Mr Bernard Gyebi, who was the Guest speaker, urged the students to live the tenets ensiled in the words “To be, rather than seen to be” as it would enable them to live a life of forthrightness.
He also expressed profound gratitude to the 1993 year group for the reconstruction of the Alema Hall that was razed down by fire three years ago.
The headmaster of the school, Mr Emmanuel Ofoe Fiemawhle, in his speech, noted that despite the achievements in academic performance, the school faced a number of challenges, such as infrastructural deficit due to the growing student population and inadequate teaching and non-teaching staff.
Moreover, he stressed that the school would require a total number of 118 classrooms to enable it to operate a single track school and 21 teaching and non-teaching staff to adequately complement its teaching needs.
Mr Fiemawhle therefore, appealed to the government to help address the infrastructural deficit and the limited teaching and non-teaching staff population of the school.
He also appealed to parents and influential personalities to allow the administrative process of the school to work in managing issues of indiscipline among students.
In his welcome address, Justice Victor Jones Mawulom Dotse (rtd), the Board Chairman of the School, said, “our gathering today should be an opportunity to reflect the values that have brought us this far and to decide on whether those values are still relevant today in the education and training of our youth.”
The Managing Consultant, Solint Consult, and Chairman of the event, Nii Klemesu Ashong, in his closing remarks, stressed the importance of collaboration among all stakeholders in ensuring that the school achieved excellence.
Awards were presented to students who had distinguished themselves in various subjects in the academic year under review, those who obtained excellent grades in this year’s West Africa Secondary School Certification Examination (WASSCE), and participants of this year’s National Maths and Science Quiz.
BY PRECIOUS NYARKO BOAKYE
