A member of the Public Services Commission, Mrs. Janet Ampadu Fofie, has encouraged female teachers to serve as role models in the society to engender the enrolment and retention of female students towards higher education.

They should also maintain high professionalism in their work to reflect their role model duties in the communities they serve.

Mrs. Fofie therefore said the government must give female teacher education the needed support to enable them to give of their best, because the contributions of female teachers impact greatly on the course of women in leadership positions.

Mrs. Fofie said this at the Fifth Congregation of Our Lady of Apostles (OLA) College of Education, Cape Coast. It was under the theme, “Promoting Quality Basic Education: The Role of The Teacher.

In all, 378 students, comprising 237 regular and 141 sandwich students were awarded Diploma in Basic Education Certificates, with two obtaining first class honors.

Mrs. Fofie reminded the female graduates about the declining respect and prestige for the teaching profession in recent times, and urged them to live above reproach and strive to meet higher expectations as they move to the communities they had been posted to.

“The pupils and students you are going to be responsible for may not be sufficiently equipped with the necessary and desirable skills and competencies needed to excel both in their academic work and their lives generally,” she said. “It is therefore important to give them the needed support and the guidance they require to make meaningful lives in society.”

The Reverend Sister Elizabeth Amoako- Arhen, Principal of the College, also advised the newly trained teachers not reject postings to rural areas, but rather use the innovative and creative skills they had acquired to make a difference in the communities in which they would be teaching.

The Most Reverend Matthias Kobina Nketsiah, Archbishop of Cape Coast, who presided, described education as the ‘most fundamental human activity in the society with the teacher being the most important agent in education delivery’.

Teachers should therefore be given the needed assistance to enable them to perform their duties effectively, he said.

He congratulated the graduates and urged them to be faithful in their service delivery for the benefit of the nation.**