ABOUT 150 years ago, the Basel missionaries set foot on the Akuapem scarp with two main aims.
The first aim was to establish churches and convert the indigenous people to Christianity and secondly to set up basic schools to educate the local people, especially the new converts to at least read and write so that they could properly communicate with the missionaries.
The Basel Mission which later became the Presbyterian Church of Ghana continued with its educational drive by establishing the first teacher training institution, the Presbyterian Training College (PTC) at Akropong, the traditional headquarters, to train teachers for the numerous basic schools.
The teachers most of whom were also trained to be ministers of the gospel, apart from helping to turn out good pupils for the then secondary schools, also succeeded in putting the proverbial Presbyterian discipline in the pupils.
The discipline instilled in the students made them to excel in the second cycle schools and finally the universities, especially the University of Ghana where students of Akuapem origin were more than any other ethnic group, especially in the 1970s.
The large number of students from Akuapem at the universities no wonder led to many of them coming out as lawyers, academicians, ministers of the gospel and engineers in different fields.
However, from the mid 1990s, the high standard of education in the Akuapem area which has now been divided into two political entities, the Akuapem North District and Akuapem South Municipality started moving anti-clockwise with many of the basic schools having all the final year students failing the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).
For instance, statistics made available by the Akuapem North District Director of Education, Mr Alfred Osei indicate that out of 1,937 candidates who sat for the BECE in the district in 2005, 1,038 passed and 899 failed while in 2006, 1,204 out of the total of 2,080 candidates presented, failed.
The situation was almost the same in 2007 when 920 out of 2,089 presented for the examination, failed while last year, 874 out of the 2,187 candidates who took part in the examination, failed.
This year’s BECE results were also not encouraging because out of the 2,668 candidates presented, 1,212 failed.
The situation in the Akuapem South District is no different as portrayed by the Municipal Director of Education, Madam Stella Kwamina Nanor although she said there had been some improvement at the BECE.
However, the continued decline in the performance of the pupils in the area over the years has led to the reduction in the number of students from Akuapem to the universities and other tertiary educational institutions.
To reverse the trend, the Akuapem Community Foundation, a body formed and directed by some well-meaning citizens of Akuapem to see to the development of the area, decided to give the necessary support to improve education in the area.
The foundation which was formed about five years ago, has within the past few years, provided educational materials, especially books to some of the junior high schools (JHS) in the area.
Apart from that, it has also taken the initiative to educate parents and guardians on the need to invest in the education of their children or wards who are also properly counselled to take their studies seriously.
To crown such efforts, the foundation has been periodically holding durbars christened: “Akuapem Education Day” each year during which stakeholders of education such as parents, teachers and directors of education in the two districts brainstorm to find lasting solutions to the problem.
This year’s event on the theme: “Economic empowerment — Earning a living from the natural environment,” took a different course because it focused on the economic empowerment of parents to be able to properly cater for the educational needs of their children or wards.
The event which took place at the serene Danso’s Naturalist Centre at Ahyiresu, near Aburi at the weekend, brought together parents, pupils, educationists, District Chief Executives for the area, Mr George Opare-Addo (Akuapem North) and Dr Godfried Osei-Bonsu Twum (Akuapem South) as well as resource persons such as Mrs Rosetta Annan, a former Director at the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
The Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Ofosu Ampofo who also attended the meeting, expressed concern about the declining standard of education not only in the Akuapem area, but the region as a whole.
He warned that any JSS in the region which records zero per cent in the BECE would have its head replaced.
Mr Ofosu Ampofo, however, directed the two assemblies to give the necessary support to all basic schools to enable the pupils to perform well.
For her part, Mrs Rosetta Annan, formerly of the Ministry of Food and agriculture, took the parents through the rudiments of income generation, especially with the use of the area’s natural resources.
A number of schoolchildren who also excelled in the previous BECE and were at the ceremony, were given books.
The Mamfehene, Osabarima Ansa Sasraku who also addressed the function, said the main aim of the foundation was to improve the well-being of Akuapems, adding that such an initiative could only be achieved through good education and income generation for parents.
He stated that the foundation had also taken steps to restore the ecology of the area which was being degraded at an alarming rate as well as helping to fight the dreaded HIV/AIDS pandemic.
Osabarima Sasraku said the institution of those measures had already started yielding positive results.
He cited for instance that out of the 120 final year JHS pupils who were given books and other assistance by the foundation last year, 113 of them had grades between one and six in English, 104 scored between one and six in Mathematics and 108 had between one and six in General Science — a remarkable development.
With such an improvement in the performance of the pupils only a year after they had been provided with books and other materials and counselling, it is hoped that many more pupils would perform creditably at the BECE next year and the years beyond to reverse the downward trend of the standard of education in the area.
The situation would put Akuapem back on the map of Ghana as one of the areas with a high standard of education.
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