Ho, Aug 4, GNA - Mr Mawutor Goh, Ho District Chief Executive (DCE), on Tuesday said the fight against indiscipline in schools has been compounded with the emergence of occultism and secret societies in educational institutions. He called for double efforts to confront the dangerous trend and to prevent it from taking deep roots.

Mr Goh was delivering the keynote address at the Ho District 2002/2003 Best Teacher, Student and Pupil awards ceremony in Ho, under the theme, "Quality Education, The Role of Stakeholders". He alleged that some boy students saw in occultism the magical powers, which could help them to win the love of their female counterparts and

success in other endeavours. Mr Goh said he recently led a team of security personnel to arrest a student who had just completed school with large quantities of marijuana and some powdery substances suspected to be either cocaine or heroin. These developments, he said posed potential danger to students, institutions and future development and urged parents to be extra vigilant to detect and deal with such traits in their children early. He challenged teachers as role models to eschew negative tendencies that could influence their students and tarnish their image.

Mr Victor H. Mensah, Ho District Director of Education, said that out of 4,572 candidates presented for the 2002 SSS Certificate Examination only 2,368 candidates scored between aggregates 6-30, representing 61.80 percent. He said that the results represented a drop to 59 percent in 2003, when only 2,671 candidates out of 4,466 candidates scored between aggregate 6-30.

The District Director of Education called for measures including in-service training for teachers, school management staff and circuit Supervisors to improve on the situation. Mr Mensah commended donor agencies like DANIDA, GTZ, USAID, DFID, ADF, the District Assembly and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) for contributing towards the provision of quality education.

Mr Francis Y. Korwu, Kpando District Director of Education, called for a scientific approach to the selection of award winners to avoid controversy. He proposed that institutions instead of individual teachers should be awarded.

A total of 120 pupils, students, teaching and non-teaching staff received prizes in the form of educational materials, fridges, television sets and radio/cassette players.