‘Include elective subjects in E-learning’

The Assistant Headmistress of Asanteman Senior High School (Domestic), Mrs Georgina Osei, has appealed to the government to include elective subjects in the E-learning module to help bridge the curriculum gap ahead of this year’s West African Senior School Certificate Examination for candidates.

While commending the government for the innovation shown on some television networks to keep the students busy while under COVID-19 lockdown, Mrs Osei said focusing on only the core subjects would not be helpful.

"It will put a lot of stress on teachers handling the elective subjects and put the students under unnecessary pressure," she said.

Mrs Osei was speaking with journalists in Kumasi last Thursday during the final leg of a 10-day national fumigation and disinfection of SHSs in the Ashanti Region.

The exercise, being undertaken by Zoomlion, a subsidiary of the Jospong Group of Companies, was carried out in 42 out of 43 districts in the Ashanti Region.

With the exception of Sekyere Afram Plains which has no secondary school, all the 134 public schools have benefitted from the exercise.

Mrs Osei said it was incumbent on students, especially the final-year ones, to ‘marry’ their books while on ‘holiday so that they do not become rusty’ when school reopens.

Facility

The assistant headmistress suggested to the government to increase infrastructural facilities to be able to deal with the increasing number of students.

Currently, she said some projects, including the school's assembly hall, which was being built from the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) Fund, had been stalled due to the suspension of PTA dues.

She called for speedy measures to complete such infrastructure since the current ones, which were overcrowded, would not be able to promote the social distancing protocol when schools reopened.

Nose masks

Mrs Osei appealed to the government to supply nose masks to all schools when academic activities resumed to prevent the spread of the coronavirus (CONVID-19).

The Corporate Affairs Manager of the Jospong Group, Mrs Sophia Nana Lissah, said the spraying exercise was being done in collaboration with other private companies.

She said after the Ashanti Region exercise, Zoomlion and its allies expected to spend the next three weeks fumigating all public SHSs across the country.

"We expect to rid all the schools of bedbugs in particular before the children are back," she said.