Sekondi College, popularly known as SECKO, held its speech and prize-giving day, climaxing the school’s 73rd anniversary ceremony at the weekend.
The anniversary was on the theme: ‘Seven Decades of Holistic Quality Education – Building the Past, Shaping the Future.’ The ceremony attracted both old students and dignitaries.
The Headmistress of the School, Mrs. Guddy Abena Kermah, mentioned the overwhelming support of the school alumni in general, for the 73rd anniversary celebration, singling out year groups like 1974, 1984, 1994 and the 2004.
She also singled out the founder and first headmaster of the school, J.W. Acquah.
SECKO was founded in 1951 with two students and three tutors. It currently has 2,933 students, made up of 1,032 boys and 1,901 girls, and a staff strength of 185.
SECKO, the Headmistress mentioned, currently runs six programmes, namely General Science, General Art, Visual Arts, Home Economics, Agricultural Science and Business.
All the programmes are heavily subscribed.
ACADEMICS
The WASSCE results, she mentioned, were analysed and the analysis made a baseline to demand improvement in performance in the next WASSCE.
As a result, the school is seeing improvement in its persistent use of this appraisal performance method.
The school had 100% pass in our 2023 WASSCE; 84% of 886 candidates had grades A1-C6. With respect to the core subjects, this translates as follows: Mathematics 84% (A1-C6); English Language 79% (A-C6); Social Studies 89% (A1-C6) and Integrated Science 87% (A1-C6).
To ensure continuous improvement in the academic performance, “we patronise any academic competition that seeks to enhance academic results. We won the Regional STEM Innovation Award in the mixed school category. Our participation in the National Mathematics and Science Quiz, which sees improvement over our previous performance, convinces us that we are on track to the ultimate prize.”
She continued, “If our determination is aided by the needed encouragement, prayer and financial support, we believe we can clinch the ultimate prize sooner rather than later.”
It is in the light of this that she expressed gratitude to the alumni for their science lab refurbishing project, which has seen the chemistry lab turned into a state-of-the-art chemistry lab and handed over to the school.
DISCIPLINE
With the school having a whopping 2,993 teenagers in their critical formative stage under its roof, for the greater part of the year, Headmistress Kermah indicated that “our pillar of strength is our insistence on our unique traditional code of discipline, which regards any breach of commonsense as a breach of school rule. We are proud to note that exemplary character is also a mark of our products in the world of life.”
She said the school’s agricultural activities and outputs, however, earned them best agricultural school in the Metropolis in 2023.
The produce from the school farms is used to supplement the feeding of students (fufu and groundnut soup, cabbage stew).
That apart, the school has been selected to participate in the second phase of the Ministry of Agriculture’s flagship programme: planting for food.
