The Pro Vice-Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology, Prof. David Asamoah, has noted that in an era when government faces significant funding challenges within the context of an explosion in student numbers and the Free SHS policy, alumni groups are key stakeholders in the maintenance and growth of our schools, particularly with respect to funding.
He made these remarks when he delivered his keynote address as the Guest Speaker at the 74th anniversary Speech and Prize-giving Day of Opoku Ware School in Kumasi over the weekend. The event was hosted and led by the Akatakyie AZ group as part of a homecoming weekend by the wider fraternity, and to mark the group’s silver jubilee of graduating from the school.
Speaking on the theme for the weekend, “Building Alumni Excellence: Honouring the Past, Present and Future”, Katakyie Prof. Asamoah (AG19), noted that all over Ghana, pride in the schools people attended for their secondary education is far beyond the pride exhibited in the institutions they attended for our primary or tertiary education, and therefore they are more responsive to those schools’ needs.
“I believe this is because our secondary school years, and particularly the boarding system associated with it, coincide with our teenage and most impressionable years and therefore on our values and world view”, he stated.
He noted further the deep bonds between many alumni and their former senior high schools are such that annual speech and prize-giving days are usually organized and led by year groups marking particular landmark anniversaries of leaving senior school, often delivering a sizeable project to the school as an anniversary gift.
“We are at our philanthropic best when it comes to our alma mater SHS, and I dare say that but for alumni, most of our Category A schools would crumble. We must continue to do even more”, he urged, noting that government alone cannot shoulder the responsibility and that alumni bodies are key stakeholders.
In commemoration of the silver jubilee of their graduation from the school, a landscape project on campus, valued at GHS500,000.00, was handed over to the school by the AZ group, with Kat. Prof Asamoah and other dignitaries present.
The project, the fifth and final phase of a comprehensive landscape project comprises grassing, planting of shady trees, construction of semi-circular reinforced concrete seats to foster interaction or socializing, construction of a laundry area with reinforced concrete seats and table, 10 standing pipes, 5 reinforced concrete scrub basins, floor drains, 600sqm area of pavement blocks installation, installation of kerbs to define pedestrian walkways.
The headmaster of the school, Rev. Fr. Stephen Owusu Sekyere, expressed the deep appreciation of management, staff and students for the beautiful project undertaken by the AZ group and assured them that it will be taken care of to ensure a conducive teaching and learning environment for the school.
