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The Reverend John Ntim Fordjour, Deputy Minister of Education, has challenged winners of the President’s Awards to lead the country's quest for more creativity and innovation. 

‘‘Ghana is looking up to you to be the next person to bring out inventions that would be patented in your name, ’’ he said.

Rev Ntim Fordjour made the remarks when 36 students who emerged overall best students in the 2020 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) paid a courtesy call on the Ministry in Accra, ahead of the President’s Independence Day Awards.

The President’s Independence Day Awards since its inception in 1993, seeks to recognise and reward deserving students for displaying academic excellence at the BECE.

It continues to provide scholarships annually to young brilliant students between the ages of 14 and 19 from all the regions of the country.

Rev Ntim Fordjour urged the Awardees to utilize the opportunity they were given to distinguish themselves and not to rest on their oars, but with the zeal to be committed to their studies to become the best.

‘’Know that what brought you to be the best and brightest in BECE may not just be enough to make you the best and brightest in WASSCE, so a lot more needs to be done,’’

‘‘It is possible that you will not just do Science and again come out with the best grades at the end of your study and the WASSCE  but your name will be celebrated as part of the people who invented a certain solution that addressed challenges in sectors of the economy including transportation, environment, health, and education,’’ he added.

The Deputy Minister noted that 90 percent of them were offering Science, Industrial Engineering and Industrial Mechanics which were indications of the critical minds that the country was expecting to lead the transformation of the country.

He congratulated the Awardees, four of them with special needs who would be honored. 

It will be a demonstration of the Government’s commitment to inclusive education, making sure that equitable inclusive education was accessible to all and promote life-long learning opportunities.

Rev Ntim Fordjour commended them for the feat they had attained and for being the epitome of the quality education outcomes that the Ghana Education Service, MOE and the Government had been investing heavily into the past few years.

He emphasized on the Government’s continuous commitment to ensure that every child received free quality education and continued to the apex to realise his or her dreams. 

The results, he said, of the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) was a testament to the quality of education that was on the rise and the 2021 WASSCE results also justified the sustainability of the improved outcomes that they hoped to see in the educational system. 

Mr Ntim Fordjour assured the citizenry that, with the introduction of the free SHS policy, the narrative where children would have to truncate their learning at the BECE level as the highest point of their education would be a thing of the past. 

He noted that the Ministry received Government, senior officials and ministers of education of other African countries who desired increasing opportunities for their learners to enlighten them on the operations and management of the free SHS policy.

Miss Bernice, an Awardee, on behalf of the others expressed appreciation to the MOE, GES, teachers, and sponsors for their support.