Apam (C/R), May 29, GNA - Members of the National Graduate Teachers Association (NAGRAT) have been urged to "temper justice with mercy" and return to the classroom to prepare final year students for their senior secondary school certificate examination.

Mr Emmanuel I. Addae, Chairman of the Apam Secondary School Parent-Teacher Association (PTA), who made the appeal, said the continued strike by the NAGRAT was creating "sleepless nights" for parents and guardians whose children and wards in the final year were expected to start SSSCE in June.

"We, the parents of the students entreat you to soften your stand and go back to help the students while solutions to your grievances are being found," Mr Addae pleaded.

The Chairman who made the appeal at a meeting of the PTA at Apam at the weekend, further appealed to the Ministry of Education to find an early solution to the grievances of the teachers since the strike action was compounding the already poor academic performance of students.

Mr Archibold Kobina Fuah, the new headmaster of the school was inducted into office by the Right Reverend Isaac Quansah, Bishop of the Cape Coast Diocese of the Methodist Church at the meeting. Bishop Quansah called on the headmaster to be a "good shepherd" and help the school to become one of the best in the country.

"Your have inherited the school at a bad time when its infrastructure has deteriorated, when discipline has broken down, when some staff members approach their work half-heartedly, and when students do not want to learn but want to pass examinations through malpractices but I know with God you can turn the fortune of the school round," the Bishop stated.

Mr Fuah catalogued the problems facing the school including sanitation, discipline, proper feeding of students and staff motivation. He said that the short-term needs were walling the compound, new dining hall and classroom furniture, rehabilitation of classrooms and staff bungalows and the provision of poly tanks to solve the school's water problem.

Other facilities needed were a computer centre, lecture theatre, classrooms and an assembly hall complex.