The newly inducted Ebusuapanyin (President) of Mfantsipim Old Boys Association (MOBA), Moses Kwasi Baiden Junior has pledged to return the ownership and management of the school to MOBA and the Methodist Church during his tenure of office.
He made the promise in a speech during his induction at the Ebusuapanyin of MOBA along with nine other executives to a five-year term, renewable for another five years.
As part of his ten manifesto pledges to ensure the empowerment, sustainability and global competitiveness of the school, he stated “I will return the ownership and management of the school to the people who love it the most: MOBA and the Methodist Church, who will collaborate with the government to manage the school as a non-profit institution, limited by guarantee, and adequately funded to set the school back on its path.”
Mfantsipim School, which is a grade A school, and has for decades, produced numerous national and global leaders, is currently managed by the government of Ghana under the Free SHS program, with grave challenges such as over crowded classrooms and dormitories, inadequate food for students among others.
But Moses Baiden, who is also the founder and CEO of Margin Group, said he believes it is time to “put Mfantsipim back on its great pedestal” as an institution that has a conducive environment for training national and global leaders.
Find below the full list of ten manifesto promise he made and assured the school that he and his team intend to carry each them out to the letter:
1. Work with MOBA to raise the required seed fund for a MOBA Endowment Fund through targeted donations to meet the long-term funding needs of our vision.
2. Return the ownership and management of the school to the people who love it the most: MOBA and the Methodist Church, who will collaborate with the government to manage the school as a non-profit institution, limited by guarantee, and adequately funded to set the school back on its path.
3. Maintain the tradition of excellence by benchmarking the best second-cycle institutions in the world and transferring best practices so that we will compete not only as a Ghanaian school, but as a world-class school.
4. Build a sustainable model that will bring Mfantsipim back to its pedestal – a pre-eminent school funded by those who can afford to pay the market price for the best education and subsidize costs for the brilliant but needy students chosen through a needs-assessment
system and awarded scholarships based on meritocracy to enjoy a free and high-quality SHS education.
5. Design a new physical infrastructure benchmarked to global standards that will optimize space and environment and determine optimized benchmark ratios of the best schools with the best Infrastructure; for students, teachers, etc. This will determine the student population (built on the Renaissance project updated by the team led by Mr. Frank Tackie).
6. Attract and pay the best market prices for the highest calibre of managers and teachers (which must include sons of Mfantsipim where possible), excellent in their fields and passionate about passing down the spirit and values of the school to the next generation.
7. Connect highly gifted Mfantsipim boys to their potential by developing a curriculum rooted in the belief that every student should be given relevant education in keeping with the needs of society challenged, engaged, and supported in a learning environment that places no limits on what they can achieve.
8. Build a digital infrastructure & system to manage both Mfantsipim and a professional MOBA management team led by the Executive Secretary.
9. Build a stronger MOBA fraternity – Create engagement forums to deepen post-completion networking and support networks, including an opportunities hub to create a job and commercial marketplace for businesses owned by Old Boys.
10. Launch an Mfantsipim Thanksgiving Day across the world to raise funds, and re-dedicate ourselves to the school, and to God.
Strategic Initiatives
In addition to the ten manifesto pledges, Moses Baiden also spelt out six laudable strategic initiatives for the future transformation of the school as follows:
- The Establishment of the MOBA endowment fund
- The building of Mfantsipim Museum
- The Mfantsipim smart initiative; digitalisation
- Build a portal integrated into the MOBA website
- Launch a MOBA Opportunities Hub
- MOBA Mentorship Program
Moses Baiden also lauded the previous MOBA executive for doing a yeoman’s job, listing numerous achievements of theirs. He then assured the school that his administration will continue and complete every project started by their predecessors.
Challenges
He however noted that to achieve the vision and strategies he has spelt out, there is a need to address the challenges that Mfantsipim School currently faces, which include inadequate infrastructure due to insufficient funding from government ($400,000 annually for 3,700 students), high student-to-resource ratio, obsolete school curriculum ineffective in this digital age, insufficient staff and student accommodation and obsolete ICT resources and digital landscape.
According to him, the various MOBA year groups have for many years been operating in silos, so his administration intends to unify MOBA to ensure collaborative efforts and collective progress towards addressing the challenges, and enhancing the school’s environment and educational offering.
Moses Baiden was sworn in together with his nine-member executive, namely David Tetteh-Amey Abbey (1990), Vice President, while the remaining eight represent the various decades group in MOBA.
The eight decade representatives are William Perry Aboagye (Over 50 years), Dr. John Tawiah Manful and James E. K. Dadson (40 – 49), Philip Creech Jones and Daniel Kofi Andoh (30 – 39), David Kobina Indome and Joseph (Papi) Dadson (20 – 29), and Theophilus Saki Sosi (10 – 19).
