Thirty-six students receive President’s Independence Day Awards

By Godwill Arthur-Mensah, GNA

Accra, March 2, GNA - A total of 36 students who excelled in the 2019 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) have been honoured in this year’s President’s Independence Day Awards in Accra.

Vice President Dr Mahamudu Bawumia who represented the President at the ceremony, commended the awardees for their exceptional acadedmic performance and encouraged them to work even harder to achieve their ambitions.

He advised them to nurture their God-given talents with perseverance, discipline and high moral character, in order to contribute their quota towards national development.

The event is organised annually by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES) and sponsored by the Nestle Ghana Limited to promote excellence and inclusiveness in education.

A total of 32 awardees from the 16 regions, with additional four best students with Visual and Hearing Impairment, received medals, certificates, citations, a set of stationery, Samsung tablet each and would be supplied with Nestle products for a year, while each student would be given GH¢1,000.00 cash prize.

The Awards Scheme was instituted in 1993 to provide scholarships to young brilliant students between the ages of 14 and 19 (male and female) from all the regions of Ghana.

The awardees are selected based on their exceptional academic performances in the BECE to recognise and reward academic excellence as well as promote and encourage students with additional educational needs.

The recipients were selected based on the raw scores obtained at the 2019 BECE of the West African Examination Council (WAEC)) and best student with additional educational needs (that is Visual and Hearing impairment).

Students with the highest raw scores in the 2019 BECE in a particular region become the representing awardees for that region.

Vice President Bawumia acknowledged the brilliant cultural displays and drama exhibited by the students at the event, noting that, the future of the nation was bright and underlined the need to harness the human resource for national development.

He noted that empirical data from research revealed that countries that made progress worldwide invested heavily in their educational system; hence Government’s resolve to introduce the Free Senior High School (FSHS) policy in September 2017, to remove cost barriers in education accessibility and ensure no child is left behind.

Dr Bawumia added that in view of the increased in enrollment of about 50 per cent, coupled with infrastructure deficit at the schools, Government introduced the Double Track System (Green and Gold tracks) to enable students on admission to run on a shift system so that no one would stay home, saying; “When you plant a crisis, you will reap an explosion later on”.

The Double Track System, Dr Bawumia said had increased the number of students by more than 400,000 each year and invested two billion Ghana Cedis annually in the FSHS policy since 2017.

So far, 1.2 million students had benefitted from the FSHS programme since 2017, with an average of 100,000 students who would have ordinarily stayed home for lack of funds by their parents and guardians gaining admissions to their preferred second cycle education institutions.

He said the Double Track System was a temporary measure to contain the increased enrollment whilst government was putting up requisite infrastructure at the second cycle educational institutions and would soon end the system.

He said government had already reviewed the curriculum of the Kindergarten and Basic schools and would soon review the Junior and Senior High schools to be in sync with 21st century education system.

Vice President Bawumia announced that Government spent GH¢56 million in 2019 to adequately prepare the final year students to write the WAEC and believed that they would come out successfully, saying that, in few years time, the nation would have educated workforce to contribute their quota to national development.

The event attracted high profile dignitaries including; Ms Philomena Tan, the Managing Director of Nestle Ghana Limited, Professor Kwesi Yankah, the Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwasi Amankwa, the Director-General of the GES, Members of Parliament, Directors of Education, the Diplomatic Community, teachers, traditional authorities, parents and school children.

The 63rd Independence Day celebration is on the theme “Consolidating Our Gains,” which will be climaxed at a national parade at the Baba Yara Sports Stadium in Kumasi of the Ashanti Region on Friday, March 6, 2020.

GNA

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