The graduation comes after the students had successfully undergone an intensive three-year nursery education and now set for enrolment in formal education.
The event, which attracted a cross-section of the community, also coincided with the school’s prize giving ceremony.
Out of the 39 students, that graduated, 20 are girls and 19 boys.
In his address, Habibou Nyassi, head teacher of Hands-on Academy recalled the institution’s journey to the day, recalling that the school started in 2011/2012 academic year with a primary school.
The vision of the school, he added, is to give quality education to the children, adding that the school over time has succeeded in setting the pace by laying a solid foundation in nursery education.
“The success leads to a popular demand from parents for the school management to continue with a lower basic. Today as we speak, the school is in its fifth year of lower basic education,” he said.
The school, he added, has an enrollment of 143 children for Nursery and 176 from the Lower Basic making a total of 319 pupils.
“Out of the total number 165 children are girls and 154 are boys. The 39 students, who graduated over the weekend have successfully completed their three years nursery education and are fully ready for formal education in any school in the country.
Despite some of the challenges facing the school, Nyassi explained that the school has registered tremendous successes especially during competitions with other schools.
He made reference to the Spelling B competition, which the school, won during the Sukuta Week celebration which the school participated alongside 10 others in both nursery and LBS in 2019.
The school, he added, also registered tremendous success in the first ever National Assessment Test (NAT) for grade 3, saying out of the 18 schools in Brufut cluster, the school came out 2nd with 100% pass in all subjects.
The guest speaker of the ceremony, Alpha Bah, head of EMIS and ICT units under the Planning Policy Analysis of the Ministry of Basic and Secondary Education, said that covid-19 is a health crisis that has brought every other sector along with it to a halt and the education sector is not an exception.
“As a result of the pandemic, schools all over the world were closed. Over 188 countries have closed their schools, and over 168 million students are out of school,” he said.
He explained that with the help of online education, another alternative to keep students at home, a lot of work was able to be done, noting that the idea was to keep the children at home so that they don’t get infected.
Bah observed that the impact of the covid-19 on the education sector was huge but with the help of their partners especially the health ministry, they were able to mitigate the situation and reopen schools.
Awa Tamba, head girl of the school congratulated the grandaunts for completing their first stage of education at Hands-On Academy. She also thanked the management of the school for giving them quality education, while urging parents to register their children in Hands on Academy.
