The Deks Educational Institute has launched its 50th-Anniversary celebration with a call on the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, for a system that allows private Senior High Schools (SHS) survive alongside the free-SHS policy. The year-long celebration is on the theme: 'Half a century of education success, proud past, and promising future.' Mrs Sonia Coolidge-Yakung, the Headmistress of Deks, said there were certain factors that the ministry and the GES needed to put in place before the free-SHS policy could be effective and beneficial for all. She said the government could place some of the students in private schools under the free-SHS to avoid overcrowding in the public schools. Mrs Coolidge-Yakung said though the Association of Private School Owners had met with the GES to discuss the issues regarding private SHS, they were still hoping and pleading with the authorities to listen to them. She expressed concern over the dwindling student population in private senior high schools, especially Deks, due to the implementation of the free-SHS policy, among others. 'More than 90 per cent of the private SHS have folded up due to the free-SHS policy because most parents would love for their children to have free education, and that has affected our SHS department,' she said. Giving a brief history of the school, she said the institution began with a desire and idea shared by the founders to have an institution that would serve all Ghanaians and shape their future to empower and transform a global community of learners. She said the theme for the celebration was a legacy the institution had built over the past years. She said the motto of the school, 'Show the Light,' had served as a guiding principle over the years and grown from a simple idea to a beacon of knowledge and a brilliant foundation for the institute. Mrs Yakung said that from a humble beginning, the institute could presently boast of 51 classroom blocks, science and ICT laboratories, e-learning centres, a bookshop, libraries , a pre-vocational and pre-technical skills workshop, and other facilities that promote effective teaching and learning. 'We are one of the few private schools in the Tema Metropolis that has adopted the Montessori system of learning, which seeks to develop the child spiritually, intellectually, and socially through methods of play, and we have a variety of clubs and international exchange programmes that complement the classroom work and break the monotony of always sitting in class,' she said. She said over the past 50 years, the institution had turned out over 3,500 students from its inception for the common entrance, Basic Education Certificate Examination, and SSC levels who always came out with impressive results. Mrs Yakung said that 50 years was an incredible legacy of achievement to celebrate and urged parents and guardians to utilise the school's services to build the future of their children. Source: Ghana News Agency