Breman Asikuma Senior High School (BASS) has celebrated its 55th Anniversary and Speech and Prize Giving Day with an appeal to the government to construct an Assembly Hall and more classrooms for the School.

The Day was on the theme: “55 Years of collaboration between the Traditional Authorities and the Methodist Church, Ghana in the promotion of Secondary Education, Achievements, Challenges and the way forward”.

Mr James Bambel, Headmaster of the School who made the appeal at Breman Asikuma said, the lack of Assembly Hall compelled them to use the dining hall for all gatherings.

“With the increasing student population, congestion is encountered all the time since the place was not built as an assembly hall, writing of final year examination has also become difficult as the hall cannot accommodate many candidates at a time”.

According to the Headmaster, the school targeted the celebration to complete a project, which reached the roofing level, comprising offices for heads of department, assistant Headmasters, staff Common room, store room for examination materials and equipment.

According to him, the current student population stood at 2,600 with a staff strength of 137 permanent teachers, 70 non-teaching staff, National Service Personnel, students on teaching practice and NABCO personnel totaling about 20.

He stated that more than 1,374 out of the over 2,600, are day students with only one dormitory for the boys and two for girls, while the classrooms were inadequate, creating a hostile atmosphere for students for effective learning.

Only 14 of the over 200 staff members, both teaching and non-teaching stayed on the campus, he indicated and expressed the worry that a 6-unit block of flats project started in 2014 and was about 90 percent completion was left in the bush.

On academic performance, Mr. Bambel disclosed that school presented 826 candidates with two absentees for the 2019 WASSCE and scored 99,03 percent pass and added that some major subjects like Mathematics improved tremendously from 74 percent in 2018 to 90 percent in 2019,.

Economics also improved from 60.23 percent in 2018 to 83.37 percent in 2019, while Principles of Cost Accounting performance moved from 62.12 percent in 2018 to 95.65 percent in 2019.

The Headmaster said, a final year female Agriculture student by name Ms Juliet Donkoh received the Cocoa Sustainability Literacy Award, when she placed second in an essay competition organised by V.C Media of which Aburi Girls’ High School was first and the third position went to Mfantsiman Girls.

Mr Bambel thanked the government through the Ministry of education and Ghana Education Service for adding the school to beneficiary schools of Secondary Education Improvement Project (SEIP), a project sponsored by the World Bank enabled the school to rehabilitate its science block.

It will also benefit from training for teachers of the core subjects, offer free Saturday classes for 300 selected students from two and three and also purchase essential books to the tune of GH¢18,000.00 for the school library.

Giving a brief history of the School, Mr. Bambel announced that it started in 1964 as Community Secondary school and was later absorbed by the then government under the Convention People’s Party (CPP) in 1965 with 60 students and six teachers and moved to its present location in 1973.

He paid tribute to the founding Fathers of the school for their foresightedness and vision and also expressed its appreciation to all stakeholders for their continuous support and pledged the staff’s commitment to ensure better performance of the students.