Mrs Phyllis Asante-Krobea, the Cape Coast Metropolitan Education Director, has entreated parents to closely guard their wards who just completed their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) against over-jubilation, to avoid trouble.
She cautioned that some children were likely to celebrate in excess and indulge in drugs, alcohol, smoking, indecent sexual behaviours and other perverse activities, which could impair their future forever.
Mrs Asante-Krobea was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Cape Coast.
‘Some of them are organising parties and may be doing all kinds of deplorable things. I am urging all parents to take care of their wards to ensure they stay out of trouble,’ she said.
‘For our young girls, they will start braiding their hair and they will look like adults and by the time they are ready to go to school, some may be pregnant. We must not allow that to happen,’ she insisted.
Mrs Asante-Krobea noted that basic school was only the beginning of education, urging the young graduates to celebrate in modesty.
‘It is just a vacation and not the end of your education and so this is not the time to go around doing things you should not do,’ she advised.
She encouraged them to support their parents in their businesses so they could get adequate resources as they prepared for secondary education.
The Metro Education Director observed that the BECE was generally peaceful and calm.
However, she said there was an incident where some seven students from the Kakumdo M/A Basic School were arrested for destroying school property to demonstrate their anger with a teacher.
She said they had since been released but the extent of the damage would be assessed and surcharged to their parents.
‘When you are angry with your teachers, you don’t destroy the same school property that helped you; it won’t solve anything.
‘Sometimes, some students get angry and burn school buses as a protest, that has stop,’ she said.
Mrs Asante-Krobea said a total of 3,988 comprising 2,067 females and 1,921 males from 102 schools wrote the exams in Cape Coast.
Three thousand one hundred and six (3,106) were from public schools while 882 came from the private schools.
There were 42 pupils with disabilities comprising of three visually impaired and 39 with hearing and speech impairment.
As directed by the Ghana Education Service (GES), she said the Metro Education Directorate would soon organise a sensitisation exercise on the school selection process and entreated parents to take interest in the exercise.
Source: Ghana News Agency