The 70th anniversary celebrations of Keta Secondary Technical School (Ketasco) was held today with Torgbui Sri. III as the royal guest of honour and Torgbui Tamakloe VI as the chairman.
The celebration was attended by ‘Dzolalians’ from home and abroad. Other dignitaries that graced the occassion included Ben Dotse Malor, Member of Parliament (MP) for Ketu North Constituency, James Klutse Avedzi, MP of Tema East, Titus Glover and Managing Director at ARB Apex Bank Ltd. Kojo Mattah.
Prof. John Gatsi was the Keynote Speaker. He enrolled in Ketasco in 1988 and completed in 1993 and 1995 for his A’ level.
He spoke on the topic “Quality second cycle education in Ghana: The role of stakeholders” where he said the recent developments in second cycle education where some students spent only 37 days in school and were asked to vacate or 56 days for first year students to come in affect contact hours negatively and compromised quality.
He said educational authorities should not trivialize the critical issue of contact hours.
He explained that truncated contact hours is the reason why parents have to pay for so many arranged classes for their children to be able to complete the syllabi. This he said creates inequality and inequity for many students.
He said though targeting second cycle education has implications for politics and votes, he believes effective stakeholder engagement should produce better and lasting quality outcomes.
He called for stakeholder engagement and debate on allowing students in second cycle institutions to use phones and tablets.
He said the call by the Vice President Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia to gift a tablet to Senior High students should generate discussion as to whether there is the need to change the policy of not allowing the use of phones and tablets in the schools.
He further explained that Junior High Students who are largely day students are given assignments which largely demands the use of phones and tablets to do the homework. So there must certainly be a discussion to ensure creative learning by students.
Prof. Gatsi, explained that PTA accountability and transparency is needed.
He noted that there are reported cases of misuse of PTA dues and called for proper structures to be put in place to assure contributors. He said those who misappropriate PTA dues should be punished because it negatively affects infrastructure projects in schools.
He inspired teachers to be role models and a motivational force for students and described teachers as indispensable in quality educational delivery.
Prof. Gatsi asked Ghanaian schools to look at quality holistically saying that if a school has three programs of which one is churning out good grades and others are not then quality in his view is not holistic.
Prof. Gatsi called on past students of Ketasco to see the 70th anniversary as a time to reflect on the past years and defining what they want Ketasco to be in terms of infrastructure, capacity of the school to enroll more students and make Ketasco attractive to all.
