Adisadel College is in the mainstream of the country's educational set up. It
is at present, an almost entirely boarding establishment. Apart from its
educational role of training the students to acquire academic distinctions and
preparing them eventually to take their places as responsible members of the
society, the boarding facilities provided by the School certainly enable the
boys to develop essential traits of character such as tolerance, respect,
obedience, fellowship, loyalty etc. The regulated life of the boarders helps to
instill into their minds, a keen sense of discipline and punctuality while their
strong attachment to their respective School Houses fosters in them the spirit
of dedication and loyalty.
The regular competitions in sports and in other fields also help them to
develop sporting and leadership qualities. These healthy developments during the
formative years of students' life at school go a long way to give the boys
progressive outlook on life and things around them. This serves to shape or
influence their way of life for the better. Viewed against this background it is
obvious that the boarding system of education has much to commend it as a vital
factor in the education and up-bringing of the young, especially in these hard
and difficult times, with harsh economic pressures on every side.
There have, of late, been much public anxiety and criticism concerning the
seemingly perennial food problems facing the boarding schools in the country.
This has given rise to suggestions that the boarding schools should of necessity
be turned into day institutions in order to curb the growing incidence of
students' disturbances arising out of poor feeding which often result in bodily
injuries and considerable damage to school properties. This step, it is also
contended will help to do away or minimise the feeding problems of the boarding
schools.
While students' uprisings are much to be deplored, the trend of public
opinion however does not seem to favour the adoption of such an extreme course
of action, as an effective solution to the problem. On the contrary, fear is
being expressed in many quarters that such action far from improving matters,
would rather compound the problems and difficulties of the students themselves
and those of their parents and guardians, with adverse effects on the general
standard of education in the country.
Already as a result of good boarding facilities available in the majority of
the well-established secondary schools and colleges in the country many students
attend schools located very far away from their home towns. For example, it is
now not unusual to see boys from Accra, Kumasi, Tamale and even beyond attend
schools of their own choice at Cape Coast or other towns. This is the general
pattern of students' distribution in the various boarding schools and colleges
in the country. For one thing, this makes for healthy social inter-course among
students of the various ethnic groups and helps to foster and give practical
meaning and significance to the oft-repeated slogan of "One People, One Nation
and One Destiny" spelt out m the National Charter.
In this light, it is contended in some quarters, that were the boarding
school system to be made to give way to `localisation' of schools or students it
would hamper the ideals of oneness and unity in diversity which need to be
fostered with the boarding schools as the grass-roots, quite apart from throwing
a large proportion of the student population in the boarding schools on their
own resources to struggle daily not only for food and shelter, but also for
transport to and from school. That would put considerable strain on the students
themselves to the detriment of their academic progress as well as their moral
and spiritual development generally.
The boarding school system has many advantages to commend itself, and it is
no wonder that it has become traditional to the extent that many parents and
guardians prefer the boarding system to that of the day schools. The whole
question of boarding schools has, however, to be viewed in the broad
perspectives of the perilous economic situation facing the country at the
moment.
Addressing the 18th annual Conference of Headmasters of Assisted Secondary
Schools held at Greenhill in August, 1978, the former Commissioner for Education
and Culture, E. Owusu-Forduoh in a speech delivered on his behalf by his Senior
Principal Secretary, S.E. Arthur, dilated on this particular problem and said
that the price that both the State and the parents and guardians themselves had
to pay for maintaining the boarding system was reaching "alarming proportions",
to the extent that the situation was "getting out of hand". (This point has also
been emphasized by the new Commissioner of Education, Dr. E. Evans-Anfom and
Director-General of Education Service, Dr. N.O. Anim ). No less than C230.00
(now risen to about C304.00) per term, the Commissioner revealed, was required
for keeping a student in a boarding school today, a financial burden, which the
government considers, is "beyond the means of many parents."
Understandably, the Commissioner has urged heads of schools particularly
those located in the large urban areas to reduce the emphasis on boarding
schools and rather go out of their way to encourage as many students as possible
to be day students. In other words, the new policy with regard to secondary
school education is in support of day/boarding schools in the sense that the
schools are to open their doors to as many students as possible who wish to opt
to become day students, so as to pave the way towards the goal of reaching "the
thousands of boys and girls eager to attend secondary schools but who cannot
find schools to attend". In any case, this new rethinking is in keeping with the
status quo of former days when the school was run as a day and boarding school
which enabled the children and wards of both the rich and the poor to have the
benefits of secondary school education without discrimination.
