A United Kingdom-based Ghanaian Lawyer, Elizabeth Asabea Turkson, daughter of an alumnus of the Asamankese Methodist Primary School, in the Lower West Akim Municipality of the Eastern Region has refurbished a library for the school.
She also stocked it with reading books for the pupils of the Freeman A & KG and the Wesley Primary A & B Schools in Asamankese, in honor of her late father, Ambassador Yaw Bamful Turkson, a former pupil of Asamankese Methodist Primary School in the 1930 and 1940s.
At a short ceremony for the handling of the project to the school authorities, she explained that “my father took education extremely seriously and he did everything to give my brother and me a very good education and I know that he enjoyed his time at this primary school and it laid the foundation for him to go on and to have a career as a diplomat, one of the first career diplomats of Ghana….This small gesture by my brother and me is not a one-off.’
She added that more books will be supplied to the library and they might be digitized at some stage.
She also said she hopes that the children will take advantage of The Ambassador Yaw Bamful Turkson Library and will spend time going back to the basics of
reading books.
As part of the efforts to develop the school, she also set up a 9-member development committee for the Schools which is chaired by the Very Rev. Dr. Francis Acquah, who has been mandated with about six projects in the pipeline.
These projects include the construction of a 10,000-liter water poly tank project for the school, a school bus, a wall around the school premises, lavatories, and an IT lab.
Ms. Turkson further highlighted that children at the basic education levels are the future leaders in the fields they will choose to specialize in, hence the need to invest more in their education to prepare them for a better future.
The Municipal Director of Education, Eunice Amfo-Akomnor on her behalf also urged parents to complement the efforts of the school teachers to create a conducive teaching and learning environment for the children.
She further outlined some challenges confronting the school which need immediate intervention.
“Things are difficult though but we are pleading with the parents to provide some basic needs for their children, concerning teenage pregnancy, we want the Chiefs to set laws which ban children from roaming in the night attending parties and funerals, and also the parents should police their children in the house whilst the teachers also do their part in the school,” she said.
“The children too, let’s help them to inculcate the habit of reading, in so doing then we can say we are laying a good reading foundation for them, that notwithstanding, let us advise them to take good care of the books which have been brought to them so that we adequately prepare them for the BECE which is ahead,” she added.
She also called on individuals, philanthropists such as Ms. Turkson, NGOs, and the government to come to their aid.
– BY Daniel Bampoe