Ghana’s Most Outstanding Teacher for 2023, Faith Aku Dzakpasu, has recounted some challenges she has faced over the years.
37-year-old female, Faith Aku Dzakpasu, a teacher at the GRETA ‘D’ Shepherd Two Basic School at Awoshie in the Ga Central Municipality is the Most Outstanding Teacher for 2023.
For her prize, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, who was the guest of honour, presented Mrs Dzakpasu, a mother of two, with a prototype of a three-bedroom apartment, worth GH¢450,000, to be built at a place of her choice in any part of the country.
She was also presented with GH¢1 million worth of insurance from the State Insurance Company (SIC) and 1,000 exercise books at a colourful ceremony at the Ghana Secondary Technical School (GSTS) in Takoradi.
October 5th is World Teachers Day, a day set aside to acknowledge and honour teachers for their immense contributions to nurturing the country’s human resources.
In Ghana, the National Best Teachers Award was instituted in 1994 and later renamed the Ghana Teachers Prize.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on Atinka FM’s AM Drive with host Obidihye Kwaku Atiemo, Faith Aku Dzakpasu listed the issue of exercise books, the unavailability of sanitary towels to female students among others as challenges she has faced over the years.
Faith Aku Dzakpasu revealed that due to the free education some parents fail to buy exercise books and other important materials to the ward.
She revealed that there are countless occasions where she had to buy exercise books as well as sanitary towels for her pupils with her own resources.
“I started my teaching career in Akwatia in the Eastern Region AME Zion, to Kpong Methodist JHS and then to Odorgonono and then my current station GRETA ‘D’ Shepherd Two Basic School at Awoshie in the Ga and I will say that the issues are the same. There were some schools where because of free education, parents did not buy exercise books for their wards because they had the perception that everything is free. With my girls, I had to come up with a pad bank where I stored sanitary pads in a wardrobe in the school so that the girls do not go home and change when they stain themselves,” she narrated.
Ghana | Atinkaonline.com | Vivian Adu
