Accra, May 24, GNA- The La Bone Secondary School on Saturday held its 38th Speech and Prize-giving day ceremony with a call on students to learn hard and help bring the nation into its highest pedal in the near future.

Dr Charles Mensah, Resident Director of the Volta Aluminium Company (VALCO), who made the call also advised the students to commit themselves to truth, virtue, courage and honesty, and above all have faith in God so that they could achieve their dreams and visions. The day had the theme: "Achieving Our Goals through Discipline" and a number of individuals and students were rewarded with prizes ranging from certificates, books, electrical gadgets and plaques for distinguishing themselves.

The School, established in 1949 as a private boarding school was absorbed by the Ghana Education Service (GES) in 1955 and later turned into a day school with the introduction of the new educational school reforms.

Limited boarding facilities were introduced some seven years ago with two third of the students being day one.

It now has 80 teaching staff, 31 members of non-teaching staff and over 2,000 students population.

Dr Mensah, who is also an old student of the School, encouraged the students to cultivate the habit of serving people to make them great rather than expecting others to serve them, saying, "what Ghana really needs is great servants who will go all out to serve the nation". He emphasized the importance of education and said that was the very basis on which success in every sphere of life hangs and urged the students to pursue their education to the highest level so that they could secure a better place in the world.

He later pledged 250 million cedis as his personal contribution for the establishment of an endowment fund for the school.

In her report, Mrs Joyce Ossei Agyekum, Headmistress of the School mentioned that there has been steady improvement on the academic performance of students over previous years and that 181 students made up of 96 boys and 85 girls qualified to enter tertiary institutions last year with grades between aggregate 6 to 24.

She said the school has introduced monthly and mid-term test for students and the results were being displayed on notice board as a measure to improve the academic performance of students. She noted that the French Embassy had agreed to equip a French laboratory of the School to enable students to adequately learn the French language well.

Mrs Ossei Agyekum commended the Parents Teacher Association of the School for their immense support especially, providing two automated boreholes for the school, which made it easier to run the boarding section last term.

She also thanked members of the La Bone Old Students Association (LOSA) for their assistance and further appealed to them to help institute prizes for distinguished students on yearly basis as well as an endowment fund for the school.

The Headmistress appealed to the GES to assist the school with a truck since the old one provided 24 years has broken down beyond repairs. 22 May 04