Aburi Girls launches Endowment Fund

ABURI Girls Senior High School (SHS) has launched an endowment fund to assist needy students of the school who are unable to afford their fees.
The fund is also meant to take care of infrastructural development for teachers in the school.
Speaking at the launch of the fund at a Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) meeting at the school over the weekend, the Headmistress of the school, Mrs Sylvia Asempa, said financial difficulties mostly affected students emotionally, psychologically and academically.
She said the fund was also to ensure that such unfortunate students were provided with the necessary materials for them to have undisrupted studies.
Mrs Asempa added that inadequate infrastructure and lack of teaching materials normally affected a teacher’s performance in the classroom thus, causing a decline in the academic performance of students.
She said provision of adequate teaching materials and facilities would not only motivate the teachers to offer their best, but would also create a congenial atmosphere for the teachers residing on campus.
She said if the fund was well serviced by all parents, payment of PTA dues might be reduced or cancelled completely.
The headmistress debunked the notion that the school was about to close down, due to severe water shortage as was reported by some media houses in the country, but was quick to add that the fund would alleviate the perennial water problem facing the school.
She reminded parents to pay their children’s fees on time in order to avoid the risk of being sacked to go back home for their fees.
Mrs Asempa, therefore, appealed to the government, parents, the Old Students Association, and the general public to support the initiative.
For his part, the PTA Chairman, Professor Lewis Enu-Kwesi, said in order to achieve quality SHS education in the country, there was the need to provide the requisite resources for it to be achieved.
He explained that the resources included adequate infrastructure, qualified teachers and non-teaching staff.
He said the solution to achieving quality SHS education did not lie in the number of years spent in school by students, but rather in the provision of requisite materials for effective teaching and learning.
"The expenditure to be incurred as an additional cost in the provision of classroom, dormitory space, library space, hiring of additional teachers and dining room space must be ploughed into finding permanent solutions to the actual constraints in implementing our educational reforms. Extension of the current SHS system by one more year will certainly be a disaster for Ghana," he added.
In a speech read on behalf of the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu Ampofo, he said the initiative was perfectly in tune with the government's manifesto of investing in the human resource of the nation and making quality education accessible to all children.
He commended the PTA for the initiative and assured them of government support to ensure that the school achieved its aim.