A
19-year-old student of Gambia Senior Secondary School, Dominic Arthur, who
hailed from Ghana Town, Brufut Village, has bagged 9As in the West African
Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
This
is the first time since the inception of the Gambia Senior Secondary School,
formerly Gambia High, that a student has bagged such impressive result.
Speaking
to The Point about the boy’s performance, the Principal of Gambia Senior
Secondary School, Mr Lamin M.B. Jaiteh, said he was very proud and grateful to
both the teachers and the students for the impressive performance.
‘’I
feel very happy and proud for someone, for the first time in the history of
this school, to come out with such an impressive result,’’ he said.
“We
are very happy to have such a score in such international exams,” Mr Jaiteh
said.
He
attributed the school’s impressive performance to the high level of
professionalism and creativity of their teaching staff, reinforced to carve out
desired results from their students.
“We
have good professional teachers and the methodologies they adopted, which are
not new, like peer and team teaching, summer and extra classes, etc were
reinforced,” he said.
‘’We
always make sure that we mobilize our teaching and learning resources and make
good use of them in order to be able to inculcate in them the basic knowledge
that would enable our students to not only pass exams but also to be able to
live in any democratic society they find themselves.’’
Mr
Jaiteh noted that they would neither rest on their laurels nor relent in their
efforts as their target is to increase the number of students coming out with
9As in the coming years.
‘’Come
next year by God’s grace we will be on top again,’’ he said.
For
their part, the senior teacher for exams and second vice-principal of Gambia
Senior Secondary School, Mr Frank Asamoah and Julius F.S. Conteh, said their
school accepts students with low grades with a mission to mould them into the
best to be the cream of society and contribute to national development.
‘’Our
students are doing very well because we enroll them based on their needs, mould
them and send them back to society for the greater good of all,” they said,
adding that as a government and community school, they prepare students well so
that wherever they enter into this world, they can fit into society.
‘’We
have had Dominic with 9As,and two others with wonderful results, 7As with 2Bs
and 5As with 4Bs and these are all students who didn’t come here with aggregate
6. People say garbage in garbage out but Gambia High puts garbage in and does
not put garbage out,’’ they said.
Mrs
Christiana Kamara, the class teacher of Dominic Arthur, said that since his
enrolment at the school he had always demonstrated a pleasant personality with
the vaulting ambition to achieve great things in life.
‘’Dominic
had every good quality one can talk about; he is humble and discipline,” she
said.
Mrs
Kamara expressed gratitude to the administration for bringing a well trained
and qualified staff which led to the outstanding performance of the students.
‘’And
we will continue to lift the banner of Gambia High School higher,” she said.
The
mother and uncle of Dominic Arthur - Aba Kwansima and Seth Freeman Fose -
expressed delight and gratitude to their son for making them proud.
‘’We
are so proud of our son Dominic and we are grateful to God for the wonderful
result he has got,” they said, adding that they didn’t expect him to come out
with the best result in the whole country.
‘’As
the first and only graduate in our family, he has made our entire family
proud,” they said, adding that he is very obedient and hardworking.
A
resident of Ghana town and neighbour to the family, Mr Kojo Morrison, said
Dominic has made the entire Ghanaian community proud and elated for his
impressive performance.
Dominic’s
friends and peers praised him for his impressive performance, saying they
expected it, as they have a mission to make their school emerge as the best
school in the country.
For
his part, Dominic Arthur, said he was delighted to come out with the best
result in the country, adding that he exerted a lot of effort in his studying
and went the extra mile to accomplish the superb result.
‘’
I spent sleepless nights and made a lot of efforts to get this result,” he
said, ascribing his success to self-determination, hard work and prayers.
‘’I
had enough time for myself studying really hard at home,” he further said.
Dominic
advised his colleagues and juniors to be self-determined and to make serious
efforts to study rather than depending entirely on private classes.
He
said he hopes to get sponsors to help him study electrical engineering at
university in order to contribute and help in the improvement of The Gambia’s
electricity and energy challenge.
The
19-year-old initially attended Brufut Upper and Senior Secondary School, where
last year’s best student in the country also hailed from.
The
Principal of Brufut Upper and Senior School, Mr Muhammed F. Jabbi, said their school puts more pressure on
academic performance by adopting a unique method which emphasizes broad-based
knowledge rather than teaching students to just pass exams.
