Aburi Girls SHS over-populated by nearly 500

Aburi Girls Senior High School is overpopulated by nearly 500 students and this is putting a lot of pressure on the infrastructure in the school. “Our school’s infrastructure is meant to serve 1,200 students and so there is a lot of pressure on our facilities when we have all the students in school from form 1-3”. This was revealed by the Headmistress of the school, Ms Rosemond Bampoe, at this year’s Speech and Prize Giving Day held under the theme “Nurturing Girls to be Global Achievers”. The school population at the beginning of the academic year stood at 1,680, indicating an overpopulation of 480 from the schools strength. It has however seen a reduction in the population with the exit of the third years who sat for the West African Examination Council. Ms Bampoe revealed that overpopulation in the school “creates congestion and overstretches the schools facilities”. She explained that the situation is “making it extremely difficult to give the desired quality of instruction and supervision that the GES and other stakeholders expect”. She further revealed that the situation has led to “overcrowding in the classrooms, dormitories and dining halls” which does not “give the teachers and students the comfort and peace of mind needed to teach and learn”. The headmistress therefore appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) “to stick to the number of vacancies that we will declare when the time comes for the placement of students through the Computerization School Selection Placement System (CSSPS)”. Speaking on the theme for the event, Ms Bampoe explained since the phenomenon of the global village is promoted by the Information Communication Technology (ICT), the school is striving to improve ICT infrastructure. The school has therefore established two 56-seater ICT labs on each of the compounds with the second one on the Irene Anderson E-learning center established in January this year. She further insisted that in nurturing girls to be global achievers, the students should “build their foundation to great achievement on time-tested values such as a commitment and dedication to their studies, both academic and co-curricular; self-discipline; truth and honesty and a mindset which sees the pursuit of excellence as a way of life. This year’s Speech and Prizes Day was organized by the 89 graduating year group of the school. The first Ghanaian headmistress of the school was honoured with a giant cake.