Community holds forum to discuss poor BECE results

Persistent threats, vilification and other hostile attitudes by some parents towards teachers, are some of the major causes identified for the low educational standards at Seidi, a farming community near Nkawie in the Atwima-Nwabiagya District. At a School Performance Appraisal Meeting (SPAM) at Seidi on Tuesday, the residents also mentioned the inability of some parents to supervise, control and monitor their wards at home as some of the problems. Organised by the District Education Directorate, the SPAM was aimed at brain storming on ways to improve the abysmal performance students of the town's Junior High School (JHS) in the current BECE. The school presented 24 candidates for the Examination and the best aggregate was 26, worse than the 16 obtained in the previous year. The residents accused some of the parents of engaging pupils in farming and other domestic activities during school periods, and noted that such acts were seriously undermining effective teaching and learning. The forum expressed concern about the poor performance of some teachers, which they claimed had contributed immensely to indiscipline and poor academic output. Consequently, the forum called for the transfer of the non-performing teachers as well as those who had stayed at post more than the years describing them as "disrespectful", and "indifferent to the academic improvement of children under their tutelage". Opanin Kwame Owusu-Barimah, an elder of the town, mentioned a protracted chieftaincy dispute as the major problem affecting the socio-economic development of the town and called for an urgent solution. Mr. Kwame Owusu-Aduomi, an opinion leader, expressed his gratitude to the Directorate for the initiative to discuss education delivery in the area and appealed for the intensification of supervision and monitoring of schools. Miss Akua Abrafi Okrah, Circuit Supervisor for the area, noted that the provision of quality education was a major tool for accelerated development and advised parents to send their children to school.