If there is a time when senior high schools (SHSs) need the helping hands of their old boys and girls, it is now.
We are yet to see a flurry of activities from these old boys and girls towards supporting their alma mater with face masks and other stuff required to keep students and staff safe.
The Covid-19 health emergency has provided a rare opportunity for all to support in varied ways.
Not doing something by the thousands of old boys and girls is not an option.
Many of the old boys and girls, it would appear, are waiting to be prompted about their responsibilities at this time to their old schools.
A few are engaged in radio station and partisan rhetoric even as students in their old schools enjoying the largesse of the state in the area of free SHS hardly remember that they too can support in their own way.
There is abundant blessing in giving and we exhort our old boys and girls not to wait any longer but to rise up to the occasion. After all, face or nose masks, soap and other items are not expensive.
Government has done enough in the area of protecting students in our SHSs. The provision of the related items too should be borne by both old boys and girls, and parents.
We have heard calls on government to provide all the necessary items for students to keep safe. While face masks have been supplied by government anyway, parents, old boys and girls too should be seen to be active in this direction.
Some old boys and girls associations have supported greatly towards the development of their alma mater which, of course, prepared them to reach where they are today. While such support is not compulsory, it is one of those donations which are spiritually rewarding.
Students who benefit from such benefaction will most likely emulate such gestures in future when they enter the world to manage their lives independent of their parents.
Students in SHSs must be moulded not only academically but also morally. The absence of such gestures would deprive the kids of these little yet important shows of love to institutions, especially where they were once students.
It is our wish that by the time many read this piece they would be moved to come together to think about how they too can support their alma mater.
The faces of old boys and girls should not be seen in their old schools only when admissions are required. Old boys and girls must be in constant touch with school heads for discussions about emerging developments such as Covid-19 which, as a pandemic, has spared no country.
We shall provide the necessary coverage for donations to the SHSs by their old boys and girls.