Staff and students of Martin Luther King Jnr. Schools at Ashaiman-Lebanon, near Tema, over the weekend held a graduation ceremony for final year students of the school.
The ceremony coincided with the launching of the 25th Anniversary of the school.
It was under the theme ‘Quality Education: a Vital Tool for Ensuring Peace and Unity’.
The Guest Speaker, Professor Emmanuel Acheampong of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), highly commended the school for its extraordinary academic and extracurricular accomplishments, and urged the management and teachers to do even more to further raise the enviable achievements of the school.
He noted that education serves as the pillar and engine of societal transformation in any country, of which peace and unity serve as pivot.
“Countries such as India, US and Germany have, and are, experiencing peace and unity, because of the priority they gave to education,” he pointed out.
In other countries, he said, bad leadership, mis-governance and inequity in resource distribution, among others, have contributed to lack of educational infrastructure and poor remuneration of teachers, leading to their lack of commitment, and subsequently, and a high level of illiteracy on the part of the citizenry.
He stated that policy inconsistency and politicisation of educational policies and programmes have also largely contributed to the high illiteracy rate in those countries.
Professor Acheampong said, in order for the nation to step up its literacy drive, it would be vital for teachers to display intellectual honesty, and also by disseminating the idea of peace and conflict resolution.
Earlier, in a welcome address, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the school, Mr. Emmanuel Max-Voy, recounted the history and said the laurels of the school were not achieved on a silver platter.
He indicated that private schools are playing critical roles, such as fostering academic excellence and high achievements, educating the child within a valve-based setting, and preparing the youngsters towards a successful future.
He said the uniqueness of private schools like Martin Luther King Junior is that they develop children’s talents through extra-curricular activities in music, sports and the creative arts.
“Our way of educating the child is not to crowd them into classrooms. The class size should be small, and quality of teaching, high,” he stated, adding that school proprietors should emulate the example set by Martin Luther King Schools to achieve perfect results.
The Chief Executive explained that pupils in private schools are not only taught book knowledge, but also trained to be critical thinkers and problem solvers, with the ability to foster and respond to today’s changing needs.
He urged parents to continue to invest in their children’s education, adding that they would reap the results in the not too distant future, when their children would take responsible positions in society.
Touching on the impending general elections, Mr. Max-Voy appealed to Ghanaians to give peace a chance, before, during, and after the polls.
“We should use other countries which have gone through election violence as case studies, and make sure it does not happen in Ghana,” he advised.
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