Ms Lankai Quarcoopome, an alumnus of the school (AGOSA ’76) and also the Guest Speaker, said, she was a strong believer that each and every child has the right to basic and secondary education.

“We do believe that through quality education, we could make our lives better and also transform our nation and for this reason, we must insist on achieving very high academic and performance standards at all levels in the country.

“Each value will bring out the best in us allowing every student, teacher, and parent to share similar expectations of what students should know and be able to accomplish,” she noted.  Ms Quarcoopome added that students would learn more when more was expected of them, at home and in school.

She said people must try to reach a target to reduce early school leavers because education was paramount in shaping young people’s attitude and behaviour. “To be an entrepreneur is not solely on business creation but also about setting the right environment for the development of a skill and innovative work force.

“I have overcome all kinds of challenges and applying all these early lessons of perseverance and skills has helped me in my business and there are multiple steps and decisions that have to be taken at different points which shapes the vision, creates the meaningful dialogue about opportunities and how it may be achieved,” she said.

According to Ms Quarcoopome, through education and training, young people would be better equipped to compete for jobs, become self-employed and contribute to the innovative and competitive world of the 21st century and to that effect, the development of skills requires new creative ways of teaching, learning and inclusion of real life experiences of learning that includes practical and not theoretical.

She said to learn another language was a skill, which should be taken seriously as one could turn that skill as profession to work as a translator or an interpreter and to speak French as a Ghanaian was necessity considering the fact Ghana was surrounded by French speaking countries.

She urged the students to participate in other school activities such as sport aside academic work, which could teach them to be team players and very disciplined as she did when she was in school.  The Headmistress of the School, Mrs Joyce Acolatse said, a critical analysis of the WASSCE results revealed an excellent improvement in the performance of the students.

She added that, the School was voted as the overall best Senior High School in the Greater-Accra Region for 2015 by the Ghana Education Service ranking Awards Scheme and the achievement was based on hardworking and discipline of students, staff and management.

“Accra Girls Senior High School made it to the semi-finals of the 2016 Capital Market Week Competition for the Senior High Schools in the Region in October 2016. The National Investment Quiz organised by the Securities and Exchange Commission awarded certificates to our two contestants,” she said.

She hinted that students show much interest in sports like handball, volleyball and basketball but there were no pitches to train. “This year, 500 students have been posted to the school and we are appealing to the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to come to our aid in providing boarding accommodation, expand the Assembly Hall, the Dining Hall and provide furniture to create a conducive teaching environment for the newly S.H.S 1 students”, she appealed.

Mrs Acolatse urged the old students of Accra Girls (AGOSA) to support the School in diverse ways to improve on the standards of the school and also appealed to the Accra Metropolitan Chief Executive and the  Ghana Education Trust Fund to sponsor the dormitory block, which started in 2008.

The overall best students in various categories were awarded.

Some of the categories were overall best student in Geography, Business, Science, Mathematics and the overall best student in this year’s WASSCE.  Other departments in the School like the Mathematics, Science and English Departments were also awarded for their tremendous work done.  The Chair person for the occasion, Dr Doris Yaa Dartey, also an old student, urged the students to aim higher and always keep their eyes on the prize

“As graduating students, I tell you that in some years to come, you will be standing where I am standing today and it takes good teachers to achieve that. Find a focus for your life and stay on it and you can shoot for the stars,” she said.