Kumasi, Aug 10, GNA - Asanteman Secondary School in Kumasi on Saturday launched its Golden Jubilee celebrations with a call to all those associated with the school to resolve to confront some of the challenges that faced the school.

Dr Richard W. Anane, Minister of Roads and Highways, who launched the celebrations, stressed the need to accelerate infrastructure development of the school to facilitate increased enrolment, teaching and learning.

Speaking at the ceremony, which was dovetailed into the speech and prize-giving day, he named the provision of boarding facilities for both boys and girls as one of the challenges that faced the school and which must be tackled.

Dr Anane, himself an old student of the school, regretted that even though the school was adopted by the Ghana Education Service (GES) for a model school, no positive impact was felt by the deboardinisation exercise.

He therefore, charged all those who had a stake in the school to be committed to the provision of boarding facilities in view of the advantages to be derived from such facilities.

The Roads and Highways Minister also called for the provision of logistics to support teaching and learning, recreation, sports and extra curricular activities like debating and tourists clubs.

He also asked that the school's computers should be connected to the Internet to broaden the knowledge of both staff and students.

Dr Anane said in view of the strategic location of the school coupled with the impressive records of the past students and staff resulting in the turnout of high calibre personnel comparable anywhere, it should be the avowed aim and commitment of the administration, staff and students, Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) and the Past Students Association to work assiduously to consolidate the past achievements of the pioneers.

Mr Peter Kofi Asante, the PTA chairman, enumerated some of the projects the association had undertaken for the school and said they include the partitioning and painting of an old dormitory block to serve as residential accommodation for the teachers.

He mentioned the completion of a two-storey classroom block for the students and a special package in the form of bonuses for the teachers as some of the assistance to the school.

Mr William K. Antwi, the Headmaster, gave the history of the school and said it was founded as a co-educational day school in 1954 by the Asante Youth Association (AYA) in response to the growing demands for more second cycle educational institutions in Ashanti.

Mr Antwi said the school remained under the aegis of AYA until 1962 when it was absorbed into the public system by the government and that from then on it grew from an initial one stream to three streams in the 1980s.

Presently, he said, the school runs 10 streams in each of the three forms with a student population of about 1,500, 65 masters and 29 non-teaching staff.

He spoke of the continuous improvement in the Senior Secondary School Examination (SSSCE) results and was hopeful that this year's will see an improvement over last year's and also enumerated the achievements of the school in quiz and debates.

Mr Antwi said the school was runners up in 1997 and third in 1998 in the Milo Soccer Competitions and beat Osei Kyeretwie Secondary School (OKESS) for the first time this year in the Ashanti region zonal athletics competition.

He said discipline was very high, in spite of the fact that majority of students were day students and announced that the school could boast of modern and sophisticated computer centre with 30 computers.

Mr Charles Fordjour, President of Asanteman Past Students Association, said they had contributed immensely towards the development of the school and that the new gate was built by some past students resident abroad.

He said the association will now turn its attention to the building of a dining hall for the school and also focus on accommodation for the staff.

He therefore appealed to all past students of the school to contribute their quota towards the development of the school.