A section of the burnt school
Authorities at the Social Welfare Girls’ Vocational Training Centre in Cape Coast have appealed to philanthropists, corporate organisations and the public to support the Centre to renovate its burnt dormitory block.
Fire gutted the only dormitory block of the Centre on Thursday, May 27, 2021 destroying many items including students’ mattresses, books, beds, cooking utensils, and undisclosed amount of money, said to be the students’ school fees.
Madam Diana Atswei Sowah, the Manager, who made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA), said a timely invention would enable the Centre to effectively execute its mandate of equipping young women with entrepreneurial skills.
Currently, she said, the Centre lacked adequate infrastructure to aid practical and theoretical training, adding that it needed enough classrooms, hostel for students, practical halls and an ICT laboratory.
As a temporal measure, Madam Sowah said management had converted its storeroom into a dormitory but that could accommodate only a few students, adding that many of the students wanted to be at the boarding house to enable them to concentrate on their studies.
She said in spite of the challenges, the Centre was making steady strides in academic work, where 37 students recently graduated, with 33 of them completing with NABPTEX Certificate and four with Proficiency Certificate from NVTI.
The examination, she said, included English Language, Mathematics, Integrated Science and Social Studies and some Technical and Vocational elective subjects, adding that the students could further their education at any technical university after completion.
Madam Sowah called on parents and guardians to support their children who wished to pursue vocational education rather than coercing them to pursue other courses not of their choice at the senior high school level.
The Centre, established in 1986 with six girls, was initially to give street girls entrepreneurial training, a sense of belonging and economic independence. It now has more than one 160 students.