THE Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) in Tamale has held a public lecture as part of activities to mark its Golden Jubilee celebrations.
The school, which was established in 1950, launched the anniversary celebrations last year and has since held several events, including clean up exercises and donations, to mark the event.
Speaking on the topic “Education as a tool for poverty reduction”, the Accountant of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Northern Region, Mr Charles Adama, said various definitions had been posited for education, but noted that the main purpose of education was to inculcate the requisite skills and qualities into an individual to enable him or her play an active and meaningful role in society.
He said the benefits of education to poverty reduction were not far-fetched due to abundant evidence.
“Educated people have higher income earning potential and therefore are better able to improve the quality of their lives. They are less likely to be marginalised within society and they participate more actively in local and national governance issues,” he indicated.
The accountant noted that education empowered the disadvantaged to move from the bottom of the ladder of development to the top.
He again mentioned that one of the key ways to combat poverty in Ghana was to empower women, since they form a larger chunk of the Ghanaian population as per the 2000 Population and Housing Census.
“Women who are not educated tend to marry early and have high birth rates. They have low family per capita income, high mortality, suffer poor nutrition and practice poor hygiene,” he indicated.
“An educated woman tends to marry only when she is prepared, desires to practice family planning and seeks proper healthcare, since she is much aware of her health needs. Also, an educated woman has a high income earning potential because she is more likely to acquire a lucrative career,” he added.
Mr Adama entreated teachers to go beyond imparting knowledge to identify and nurture the talents in their students, stressing that it is only when education enhances talent, that we reap the most benefit from people, “otherwise we risk training people who have nothing much to add to society.”
The Headmistress of GHANASCO, Mrs Mary Asobayire, said the anniversary celebrations would be climaxed in November this year and that events that were to be held to mark the Golden Jubilee include debates, durbar, symposia and a fund raising dinner dance.
No comments:
Post a Comment