GTAD HOLDS 4TH EDUCATION SYMPOSIUM FOR 2024 BECE AND WASSCE CANDIDATES AT AVE DAKPA

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This year’s annual examination forum for final year Junior and Senior High students in the Akatsi North District of the Volta Region has been held at Ave Dakpa, the district capital. The symposium which was organized by the Generational Thinkers of Ave Dakpa (GTAD), an educational Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) based at Ave Dakpa, brought together more than Seven Hundred (700) West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) candidates not only from some basic schools in the district but also the only senior high school in the Akatsi North District. 

The examination forum was instituted by the educational NGO in the year 2021 to address the abysmal performance of pupils and students at the BECE and WASSCE levels.

The symposium was held in collaboration with the District Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) at Ave Dakpa and other stakeholders of education in the area. Due to lack of funds and resources on the part of GTAG, only four (4) out of the thirty-one (31) basic schools across the district, took part in the forum alongside the more than five hundred (500) final year students of the Ave Dakpa Senior High School (AVESCO).

Five (5) speakers took the final year students through a number of topics including positive life styles before and after school. An Educationist and Chief Examiner of the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), Mr. Newman Johannes Kpogo took the students through confidence in examinations for excellent results and answering examinations questions satisfactorily while the former Head of Department (HOD) of Chemistry, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Professor Johannes A. M. Awudza dealt with time management for excellent results as well as final preparations for the examinations.

A member of the Ave Dakpa Senior High School Old Students’ Association (AVOSA) and Chief Executive Officer for Rockstar Academy at Dzodze in the Ketu North Municipality, Mr. Peter Atsu Danyo touched on the dos and don’ts in examinations as well as the appropriate behaviours to portray after a paper. His AVOSA colleague and private legal practitioner, Mr. Daniel Dzorkpe of Astute Legal, Accra, spoke on how to conquer fear and also make good grades in the examination.

Some career guidance tips were also shared with the participants, some of whom also had the opportunity to ask questions for clarifications on some of the issues discussed.

The facilitators stressed the need for the students not only to build self-confidence for themselves but also see examinations as part and parcel of their lives. 

Speaking to our newsteam in an interview after the forum, lead facilitator and Patron of the NGO, Professor Johannes Awudza called for parents’ involvement in the forum. Professor Awudza, who is also a native of Ave Dakpa and Senior Lecturer at the College of Science, Department of Chemistry at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, also appealed for support from the public to sustain the project. 

According to him, one of the major challenges facing the GTAD is the needed resources to expand the project to cover the entire district thereby benefiting more final year students. Professor Awudza explained that when these students are brought together for a programme like this, they have to be fed for lunch and also provided with some refreshment in addition to taking care of their transport expenses. 

He used the opportunity to appeal to the GES in general and the Akatsi North District Assembly (ANDA) in general not only to own the programme but also allocate resources for its implementation and sustenance. Professor Awudza also appealed to other stakeholders of education in the area to also give the needed support to positively impact more children in the district.

Earlier in an address to the candidates, the Presiding Member (PM) of the ANDA, Hon. Patrick Kwame Ahiabu charged the students not only to remain focus but also confident towards their final examination. He reminded them that so long as they remain students at all levels, they would continue to write and pass through examinations from time to time.

President of GTAD, Mr.Tony Quist, speaking to our newsteam in an interview after the symposium, described the enthusiasm among the beneficiaries of the forum as encouraging, saying the students need further motivation from all and sundry to be able to give off their best.

He commended the teachers for their sacrifices for the children and urged them not to rest on their oars. According to Mr. Quist, they days when teachers’ rewards were said to be in heaven are over.

The Paramount Queenmother of the Ave Xevi (Tagba) Traditional Area, Mamaga Awutorlewe II who chaired the function was grateful to the organizers for the laudable initiative and urged the participants to make good use of their time not only as students but also as citizens of the area in particular and the country at large.

Some of the students, who shared their thoughts with the newsteam on the forum, described the function as very educative, encouraging and timely. School Prefect of the Ave Dakpa SHS, Master Francis Kojo Yesu and his counterpart Girls’ Prefect, Miss Susana Nubla, told our newsteam in separate interviews that they have been exceptionally motivated by the facilitators to face the examination as well as their lives after the papers.

Story: Benjamin Makafui Attipoe, Ave Dakpa

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