Poor BECE (Secondary) Results in E.Region - Ghana

School records 0% BECE pass for eight years!! - Ghanaweb

Not a single pupil from the Anyinam Kotoku Local Authority Methodist Junior High School (JHS), near Akyem Oda in the Eastern Region, has passed the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) for the past eight years.

The situation has adversely affected enrolment as there are currently only eight students in the school who are about to enter form three to prepare for the BECE in April, next year.The unfortunate development has compelled the District Chief Executive (DCE) for Birim South, Baffour Mensah Takyi, to hold a stakeholders' meeting attended by teachers, parents, school prefects, traditional rulers, officials of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the district assembly, at Anyinam Kotoku to identify the problems and find lasting solutions to them.

Addressing the meeting, Baffour Takyi threatened to close down the school and transfer the teachers and pupils to other schools if the staff and parents of the school did not take realistic measures to reverse the poor performance of the pupils.

He dismissed the notion by the teachers, pupils and some parents that a spiritualist had revealed that someone had cast a spell on the school by spiritually planting an amulet on the school compound, hence the children's poor academic performance.
The DCE warned that the government could not continue to invest huge sums of money in education without getting any fruitful results.He advised the parents and teachers of the school against misusing the labour of the schoolchildren for their selfish interests.

Baffour Takyi also cautioned the pupils to refrain from truancy and lateness to school, warning "drastic action would be taken against any schoolchild who would go to the bush in search of 'bonawa' (games) at the expense of his/her education".

The Royal Bretuo Abusuapanin of Anyinam Kotoku, Nana Kwame Fosu Akowiah, who acted as the spokesperson for the chiefs and people of the town, said the continuous poor academic performance of the schoolchildren was of great concern to them.
He, therefore, thanked the DCE for assembling the stakeholders in education to find out the challenges that militated against the academic progress of schoolchildren and help find antidote to them.

Mr Fosu stressed that the traditional rulers and parents would practically support any practical move to be adopted to reverse the falling standards of education in the area.

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New - HIV gene decoded for new treatments

Structure of HIV genome 'decoded' (Source: BBC News)

The team hope their work will pave the way to new treatments
Scientists say they have decoded the entire genetic structure of HIV-1 - the main cause of Aids in humans.
They hope this will pave the way to a greater understanding of how the virus operates, and potentially accelerate the development of drug treatments.
HIV carries its genetic information in more complicated structures than some other viruses.
The US research, published in Nature, may allow scientists the chance to look at the information buried inside.
HIV, like the viruses which cause influenza, hepatitis C and polio, carries its genetic information as single-stranded RNA rather than double-stranded DNA.
The information enclosed in DNA is encoded in a relatively simple way, but in RNA this is more complex.
We are also beginning to understand tricks the genome uses to help the virus escape detection by the human host
Ron Swanstromstudy author
RNA is able to fold into intricate patterns and structures. Therefore decoding a full genome opens up genetic information that was not previously accessible, and may hold answers to why the virus acts as it does.
The team from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said they planned to use the information to see if they could make tiny changes to the virus.
"If it doesn't grow as well when you disrupt the virus with mutations, then you know you've mutated or affected something that was important to the virus," says Ron Swanstrom, professor of microbiology and immunology.
"We are also beginning to understand tricks the genome uses to help the virus escape detection by the human host."
Deep inside
Dr David Robertson from the University of Manchester welcomed this "definitive analysis".
"What this may reveal is some of the proteins operating at a level below the structures, which may have all sorts of functions within the virus.
"More generally, if we can unpick the structures then we can compare the systems of different viruses and gain new understanding of how they work."
Keith Alcorn of the HIV information service NAM added: "Encouraging the virus to mutate is not a new idea, but it is one of a number of options on the table.
"How important this information will be for the development of new drugs remains to be seen, but it is a useful addition to what we know."

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