News

NAGRAT backs decision to allow SHS, JHS students to write WAEC exams

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) has backed government’s decision to allow final year Senior and Junior High School (SHS/JHS) students to write this year’s West Africa Examination Certificate (WAEC) examinations.

According to Eric Angel Carbonu, President of NAGRAT, the students had already completed the syllabus and have been adequately prepared for the examinations before the schools were forced to close down in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

“The short stay at home will not be a problem because the students were in the revision stage, preparing for the examinations. They had already completed the syllabus and were just in line to write their papers when the diseases struck the country. I agree that they write the examination rather than progress them with the Continuous Assessment which is fraught with challenges,” he stated.

In an interview with the Ghanaian Times yesterday in Accra, he, however, expressed concern about the decision to re-open schools this month although Ghana’s COVID-19 positive cases continue to rise.

He said re-opening of schools should have been delayed until September or October in order not to risk the lives of students and teachers.

“I agree that the re-opening of schools should have been pushed back to September or October, so that by then we would have had ample time to know how we will go about the situation to protect our students and teachers. We must place the lives of the students and teachers and anybody for that matter above any certificate,” he stated.

Although the delay would have thrown the academic calendar off-gear, Mr Carbonu explained that, the disease has impacted negatively on all sectors, including education, and destabilised economies across the globe, and Ghana could not be an exception.

“Until a definite global response to COVID-19 was found, the NAGRAT President said, life would not return to normal as before, stating that “we must prioritise the lives of our people until then,” he said.

Currently, he said, there was growing mixed feelings among parents as to whether or not schools should be re-opened when Ghana’s recorded cases continue to rise with no cure or vaccine for treatment.

He noted that there was uncertainty among students and teachers on how the schools’ environment would be ideal to curtail spread of the disease.

Mr Carbonu said mass testing for students and teachers, which has been proposed, was not the ideal solution as stated by some health experts, adding that “the associated costs and it being less of a prevention mechanism is why government has not taken that path.”

He urged the Ministry of Education to allow parents and their wards decide on whether or not to return to school, because most of them were through with their preparations for the examinations.

President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 10th address to the nation on measures put in place to check the spread of COVID-19 in the country announced the reopening of schools, but for only final year students of Junior High School, Senior High School and tertiary institutions.

According to him, beginning June 15, final year students are to resume school starting with university students.

BY CLAUDE NYARKO ADAMS

News

Swallowed by the Sea! …Keta’s coastal lines, landmarks, efforts to preserve heritage

Fragments of a once inhabited home now lie submerged, swallowed by the encroaching waters along Keta’s coast(1)

The Atlantic Ocean is no longer a distant blue horizon for the people of Keta.

It now circles around their doorsteps, uninvited, unrelenting, pulling down walls and other structures, erasing memories, and threatening lives.

Hovering precariously between the restless sea and the Keta Lagoon, this once-thriving coastal town is slowly being obliterated.

A once standing home now lies in ruins, claimed by the relentless waves along the shore of Keta a stark reminder of the growing threat of coastal erosion.

Salt water has become both a physical and metaphorical threat, dissolving the town’s past as fast as it claims its future.

Madam Aku Atitso, 62, lives in a crumbling former Prisons Service quarters – one of the few structures still standing on the eroded stretch of Queen Street.

The remains of the old Ghana Prisons quarters in Keta, slowly succumbing to the advancing sea, evidence of the unyielding coastal erosion reshaping the shoreline.

She sits quietly at the entrance, preparing a modest breakfast for herself and her granddaughter.

The air is thick with salt and silence. “The sea took everything,” she says softly. “My husband’s nets, our mattress, our memories all gone overnight.” Her voice trembles. “This place too is dying. But it’s the last place with a roof over my head.”

A few metres away, Aunty Esinam, 79, watches the sea from a low stool beside a wooden shelter. Her eyes do not blink. “That spot,” she points, “used to be someone’s living room, a whole family lived there”.

Efo Agbeko stands atop the sea defence wall, pointing toward the vast Atlantic Ocean, marking the spot where buildings once stood before the sea claimed them

It’s not just homes that are vanishing. Landmarks that anchored Keta’s cultural identity are disappearing one after another. The once-imposing Fort Prinzenstein, a haunting relic of the transatlantic slave trade is now more of a ruin than a monument.

Fragments of a once inhabited home now lie submerged, swallowed by
the encroaching waters along Keta’s
coast.

The colonial-era Bremen factory, the old cinema where generations of children once laughed at flickering black-and-white films is also gone.

Queen Street, once the town’s bustling backbone, is now a watery corridor choked with debris.

Standing atop a section of the sea defence wall, 69-year-old retired teacher Efo Kwasi Agbeko surveys what remains.

“The first police station is mostly gone,” he says, gesturing part of the building stuck in the sea sand, only ruins and a few rooms remain.

Children play on a fishing canoe grounded in the sand a moment of joy amidst the quiet rhythms of coastal life.

“This town is fighting, but the sea is winning,” he said.

Even the Cape St. Paul Lighthouse, Keta’s historic sentinel, leans perilously toward the water, and fishermen say holes in the shore are opening more frequently, sometimes every week.

That leaves a thick cloud of uncertainty hanging around the historic town of Keta.

Once upon a time, it was a vibrant town noted for business but currently left with ruins with a few of the residents watching in awe the sea’s devastation.

From: Geoffrey Kwame Buta, Keta, Volta Region

News

Ghanaians climax Easter with fun-filled activities

• Awards given for outstanding performance

Christians around the world and other faith based groups last Monday climaxed the Easter celebration with a number of fun-filled outdoor and indoor activities.

With streets empty, fun seekers stormed church premises where picnics were held while others partied in many ways.

Others spent the day at the various beaches and music and film shows occupying the others.

At the churches, participants engaged in bible reading, football, volleyball, playing cards, table tennis, horse racing, bouncing castles, swimming and oware.