Bawku (U/E), Nov. 2, GNA – The Headmaster of the Bawku Senior High School (SHS), Reverend Sylvester Agalga, has blamed the poor academic performance of the school, over the years, on the quality of pupils churned out from the Junior High Schools (JHS).
Speaking at the Third Homecoming and Congress of the Bawku SHS Old Students Association (BOSA), the Headmaster said “in the last ten years, academic performances of the students were not impressive at all.
“The pass rate percentage ranged from below 20 per cent in 2015 to as low as three per cent in 2018 before the current school management was constituted in 2019. This compelled school management to put new radical and results-oriented management systems in place aimed at improving the academic record.”
He said with the current management in place, the poor pass rate of three per cent in 2018, where only 13 students had qualified for the tertiary level, the bar was raised by the current school management to ten per cent and 75 students qualified for tertiary education.
Reverend Agalga said school management remained focused, and assured their major stakeholders that “the least pass rate to be expected for the 2021 candidates will be 50 per cent.
“The reason for this projection is hinged on our determination to vigorously pursue our key performance indicators contained in our performance contract document,” he noted.
The headmaster, who later explained the cause of the poor academic performance over the years in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Bawku, said “The products we receive from the basic education level have not been good at all.
“Most of them gain admission to the school, yet they cannot read and write, we have to struggle to ran remedial classes for them and at the same time, we have to work so hard to bring all students to speed,” he added.
He further indicated that the poor performance of students of the school could also be blamed on the challenges confronted by the school, saying “We don’t have a spacious and well-resourced library and the computer laboratory is nothing good to talk about.
“We have a number of dilapidated classroom structures that we have been struggling over the years to put right. Staff accommodation is also a problem. Many of the staff live outside the school, so it affects the time they come to school,” the Headmaster said.
Sheikh Abdallah Otito Achuliwor, the Vice President of BOSA, also told the GNA that one of the major challenges that affected academic activities and translated in the poor performance by students on campus was the lack of water in the school, which BOSA had solved.
He said the academic performance of the school was of concern to BOSA, noting that, as part of BOSA’s commitment to improve performance, it would motivate the teachers of the school, and take up the initiative to sponsor extra classes for the students.
In a speech read on his behalf, the Upper East Regional Minister, Mr Stephen Yakubu advised students of the school to avoid unhealthy practices such as drunkenness, lateness, use of narcotic drugs and occultism among others.
Some students who spoke to the GNA, said they were motivated and encouraged by the high-profile personalities who completed the school several years, and would also study amidst the challenges to become worthy members of BOSA in the future.
GNA