By Jesse Ampah Owusu,
Accra, Nov. 16, GNA – Ahafoman Senior High School has emerged overall winner of this year’s STEMNNOVATION competition held for Senior High Schools (SHS) and Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) institutions across the country.
The school beat 25 SHS and TVET schools that participated in the finals of the Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) project innovation-based competition in Accra.
The competition organised by the Ministry of Education in collaboration with the National Entrepreneurship and Innovation Plan (NEIP) provided a platform for the students to showcase STEM projects they developed to solve societal problems.
This year’s projects were grouped into three categories, namely Urban Gardening, Clean Water and Effective Use of Electricity.
Ahafoman SHS had164 points, followed by second placed Wesley Grammar SHS with 150 points and third placed Bosomtwe Girls’ STEM SHS, 143 points.
The school was presented with GHS 50,000 cash prize, a full tertiary scholarship in Ghana for their three lead students, who presented on the STEM
project, one week stay in Japan, a GHS 20,000 year insurance package from GLICO, a laptop and a printer.
For the second position, Wesley Grammar SHS received GHS 30,000 cash prize, a laptop and a printer.
The third-placed Bosomtwe Girls had GHS20,000 cash prize, a laptop and a printer.
The Ahafoman SHS team presented a project dubbed “Flexible Use of Electricity”.
They generated electrical power through a locally modified generator and accumulator connected to a solar panel to power a plant-based incubator.
Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, Minister of Education, said Government was committed to promoting the teaching and learning of STEM through the competition.
“The policy of STEM is responsive to the current times we find ourselves. It is through STEM that we can mobilise our youth to innovate our way out of poverty into prosperity as a country,” he added.
The Minister urged the participating schools to continue to develop their projects regardless of their performance in the competition.
Mr Kofi Ofosu Nkansah, Chief Executive Officer of NEIP, said they would integrate the projects of the top ten schools into their youth entrepreneurship agenda to ensure that the projects received the needed support to grow.
“As a government agency responsible for entrepreneurship and innovation, we would support the top ten schools to commercialise their projects via business development services, certification, market size, among others, to ensure the sustenance of these projects,” he said.
Other awards presented on the evening were Core Values award presented to Kpando Technical Institute; Engineering award presented to Suntreso Technical Institute; Best Presentation award won by Dabokpa Technical Institute; Best Science Integration award presented to Swedru SHS, and Best Technology Integration to Bosomtwe STEM Academy.
The rest were the Best Innovative award presented to Wesley Grammar SHS; Breakthrough and All Girls’ team award presented to Ahafoman SHS, and Sustainability award presented to Besease SHS.
Also, Wesley Grammar SHS won the Urban Gardening category, with Swedru SHS and Ahafoman SHS winning the Clean Water and Effective Use of Electricity categories, respectively.
Participants, coaches and teachers of all the winning schools were presented with medals.
This year’s competition had 249 schools out of which 116 were shortlisted to begin the regional contest, with 25 of them qualifying for the grand finale.
GNA