Kpedze Senior High School in the Volta Region on has launched its 50th anniversary celebrations to generate awareness among former students and stakeholders to raise funds for the event scheduled for next year, in Accra. The anniversary to be marked on the theme: “50 Years of Academic and Moral Training: The Role of Stakeholders,” would be climaxed with a durbar on Saturday, November 24, 2012. Kpedze SHS was established on 12 November, 1962 with 15 students made up of 10 boys and five girls. Mr. Gabriel Mawusi Aku, the headmaster of the school, lauded the great strides made by the educational institution over the years despite the many difficulties and challenges and said there were still problems to be resolved in order to enhance academic work. The problems included bad nature of the Ho-Kpedze road, poverty due to a decline in cocoa production, low interest in the affairs of the school by government and the people, lack of laboratory for the Agricultural Science Department and an ill-equipped Information and Communication Technology (ICT) department. Mr Aku said the school authorities were doing all they could to enhance infrastructural development, adding that work had already begun on a two-storey boys’ dormitory building, one three-bedroom headmaster’s bungalow, two-in-one semi-detached bungalows, four-unit flat accommodation for staff, rehabilitation of all academic facilities as well as the girls’ dormitory. He commended the government for rehabilitation the Kpedze road and also supporting the ICT department. The Deputy Minister of Transport, Ms. Dzifa Attivor, who is a former student of the school, advised students to take the study of Science and Mathematics seriously since the two subjects had become the kingpin of national progress. She reiterated government’s commitment to support the educational sector. Ms. Victoria Opoku, a Director for Education, who represented the Minister of Education, launched the anniversary. She said teachers had played vital and transforming roles in the development of education. Ms. Opoku said many schools were being undermined by academic under-achievement, over-dependency, under-funding and conservatism and asked the students to take their courses seriously to enable them acquire education to become responsible citizens. Togbega Atsridom V, chief of Kpedze, who chaired the occasion acknowledged government’s effort at upgrading the school to promote education in the area. Source: GNA