Monday, June 30, 2008

Galaxy School holds 5th graduation

Page 11
June 30, 2008

GALAXY International School has held its fifth graduation with a call on private education providers to step up their complimentary role in the provision of education.
The Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Samuel Bannerman-Mensah, who made the call, said the service acknowledged the contribution of the private sector in education delivery, hence the need to do more.
At the ceremony, certificates were presented to pre-school as well as junior and senior high school graduates.
The school also presented gifts to teachers for their role in producing quality students.
Mr Bannerman-Mensah commended the school for placing a high premium on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and thus equipping students with the requisite skills.
He said students of the school should count themselves lucky since there were many children who did not have such opportunity, and, therefore, urged them to develop themselves adequately for the task ahead.
He asked them to show respect to authority as well as obey rules and regulations, adding that "character should be of a high standard".
Mr Bannerman-Mensah charged the students to have ambition to succeed in life.
The General Manager of the school, Mr Tamer Kirca, said the school which was established in 2001, could now boast students of 41 nationalities pursuing local and foreign courses, thereby reflecting its true international status.
"Ours is a multi-cultural school where students with diverse cultural backgrounds come to understand the diversity of cultures and work in harmony,” he said.
He announced that six students won Gold, Silver and Bronze medals at various international competitions the school participated in. The competitions included Energy and Engineering competition in the United States, ICT competition in Turkey, ICT competition in Georgia and a Physics competition in Bosnia.
Mr Kirca said the successes chalked up were only a tip of the iceberg, and that plans were afoot to increase the number of entries for more of such competitions.
The school, he said, scored 100 per cent in both the 2007 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The National Coordinator of the Ghana School Feeding Programme, Mr Michael Nsowah, who chaired the function, said Galaxy had become the leader in science and mathematics education.
He commended the management for instilling a high level of discipline in the students.

'Make quality your main agenda'

Page 11
June 30, 2008

THE General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Mrs Irene Duncan-Adanusah, has stressed the need for teachers to make quality the main agenda under the current education reform.
According to her, teachers should be more concerned with the delivery of quality education when in the classroom to ensure that the reform achieved the desired objectives.
Mrs Duncan-Adanusah stated this at a colloquium organised by the Consultative Council for Teachers Association (CCTA) of GNAT.
The programme, which was attended by teachers from the 10 regions, was on the theme “The Educational Reform of Ghana-Challenges”.
Mrs Duncan-Adanusah noted that the issue of education challenges were being discussed all over the world, hence the need to find solutions to them so as to move forward as a nation.
According to her, a lot of resources would be required to achieve the Education For All (EFA) goals, adding that early childhood education for instance should not be left to care givers alone since it was a speciality that required professionals.
A lecturer at the University of Education, Winneba (UEW), Mr Jakalia Abdulai, who presented a paper on “Ensuring Effective Development of Language Skills at the Pre-tertiary Level”, suggested the institution of an extensive reading policy.
That, he said, should be carried out from the national to the community level, saying that time should be allocated in schools for sustained silent reading to ensure the effective development of language skills.
He said the academic language of some students was not encouraging, especially in the use of English.
The acting Dean of the Faculty of Educational Studies at UEW, Prof Grace Yawo Gadagbui, who spoke on “Lifting Aspirations in Special Needs Education”, underscored the need for all to embrace inclusive education .
She said when children studied together, it ensured an inclusive society.
Speaking on the topic, “Strengthening Early Childhood Education in the Country”, Mrs Ruth Addison of the Ghana National Commission on Children said about 22,000 teachers had been trained in early childhood development.
She called for the attachment of kindergartens to all basic schools, and implored teachers at that level to have a change of mindset and provide quality education.
The educational reform, which took off in September last year, focuses, among other things, on content and structure, teacher education, Informational and Communication Technology (ICT), technical and vocational education training, as well as management efficiency and effectiveness.

Rumpus at Osu, Chief's palace vandalised, 12 picked for

Front Page Lead story
June 28-2008

TWELVE people have been arrested by the Osu Police for breaking into and vandalising the Osu Mantse’s palace.
The 12 were picked up by a police patrol team at 8.00 p.m. on Thursday during the disturbances at the palace.
The Osu Divisional Police Commander, Chief Superintendent Elizabeth Dassah, made this known to the Daily Graphic when she paid a visit to the palace to assess the state of affairs.
She said she was surprised at the development because she had met the elders of one of the factions in the chieftaincy dispute earlier on Thursday morning to ensure peace, after she had heard that the youth of that faction had assaulted the caretaker of the palace in a bid to occupy it.
Chief Supt Dassah said the elders from the Dowuona faction had said at the meeting that they had an extract from the National House of Chiefs withdrawing recognition for the occupant of the palace, Nii Nortey Owuo III, for which reason they did not want him to occupy the palace. But they said they needed police assistance to do that.
However, she said, she had told the elders that the police could not do that unless there was a court order, adding that the elders then left, promising to get a court order to get the chief out of the place.
She said she was, therefore, shocked to learn later on Thursday evening that some people from that faction, including one of those who had been at the meeting in the morning, had gone to the palace with some young men to force their way into it.
DSP Samuel Punobyin, who led the police team to the palace, said when the patrol team got there, the intruders had locked themselves up to prevent the police from arresting them.
He said the leader of the intruders, whose name he gave as Lawrence Quist, then got down from the building, after which the others were picked up.
He said one of the intruders who tried to escape on seeing the police was beaten up by some members of the opposing faction after he had unknowingly run into their territory.
DSP Punobyin said it was the police who rescued him from further assault.
When the Daily Graphic team got the palace, there was a bullet hole in one of the glass windows, while implements, including an axe, a sword, a hammer, pincers and a butcher’s knife, were found there.
Also there were broken flower pots and louvre blades, among other things. However, drinks on the conference table at the palace and a computer were intact.
A member of the Owuo faction in the protracted dispute, Nii Okwei Nortey, described Thursday night’s incident as unfortunate, saying that an extract from the National House of Chiefs did not mean a chief had been destooled.
He blamed the House of Chiefs for the problem, since it listened to only one of the factions, instead of both.
He said the chief had since responded to the letter from the House of Chiefs.
Nii Nortey said anybody who had a problem with the current chief should go to court and do the honourable thing.
Meanwhile, Chief Supt Dassah said the matter was being investigated, after which the police would decide on the next line of action.

Friday, June 27, 2008

Shake-up At NACOB, Operations decentralised

Front Page Lead Story
27-06-08

A major restructuring and expansion exercise at the Narcotics Control Board (NACOB) has been announced to strengthen the capacity of the board to deal more effectively with the drug trade in the country.
As part of the exercise, new directorates and specialised units have been created, with specific functions in Finance and Administration, Demand Reduction, as well as Enforcement and Control.
The specialised units include Internal Audit, Project and Information Management and Legal and Public Relations.
Furthermore, a rotational system for NACOB personnel and operatives has been introduced, especially for those operating at the Kotoka International Airport.
Operations at NACOB have also been decentralised into the northern, middle and western zones.
The Executive Secretary of NACOB, Mr Benjamin Botwe, who made this known to the Daily Graphic, said, “We want to create a system, not individuals, since it is more difficult to corrupt a system than to corrupt individuals.”
He said the restructuring of the board was to ensure an environment in which offices would be assigned specific jobs with specific objectives.
“We have created a solid organisational base on which future operations can depend,” he said, adding that under the directorates, there were also departments charged with specific responsibilities.
He said the board had to decentralise its activities since the drug problem had ceased to be a problem of only Accra, hence the need to spread its operations to other parts of the country.
Mr Botwe indicated that inter-agency co-ordinating committees, made up of representatives of the board, the security agencies and other institutions, had also been set up to co-ordinate activities.
A new conditions of service document had been developed and approved by the board, he said, and added that the non-financial components of the document had been implemented.
“The financial components are with the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning and the Fair Wages Commission, from whom approval is being awaited for implementation,” he said.
Mr Botwe said the right working environment had been established through the provision of new sets of furniture, as well as computers and Internet access for staff, “instead of the situation where only one person used to have access to the Internet”.
The board, he said, had signed an agreement with the Public Sector Reforms Ministry for the establishment of a client service centre where all information on NACOB could be obtained through fax, phone or e-mail.
“Those days NACOB’s operations are closed. We are trying to make it an open organisation,” he said, adding that a document, Standard Operating Procedure for NACOB, had been developed, in addition to a three-year strategic plan (2008-2010).
Mr Botwe, who is on secondment from the Food and Drugs Board, said for the first time, recruitment of staff was done through a public advertisement in the Daily Graphic and that interviews were conducted by representatives from the Office of the Head of the Civil Service, the Public Services Commission, the Directorate of Human Resource at the Ministry of the Interior and the Governing Board.
He said there was industrial harmony at NACOB and that when the rumour of a pending strike came to the notice of management, he took the opportunity to explain the steps that had been taken to resolve the salary issue and cautioned especially those who were on probation on the implications of their action in relation to the Labour Law.
According to him, an open administration had been instituted, with a three-tier democratic governance structure comprising top management meetings, middle management meetings and staff durbars, to give staff the opportunity to ask questions bothering them.
Mr Botwe later disclosed that the board had taken delivery of a custom-built toilet for expelling drugs for persons who had swallowed drugs for trafficking, explaining that the facility would be installed in a fortnight’s time.