St Paul’s Senior High School and Minor Seminary (SPACO), Hatsukope has commissioned the entire first-year students into its Naval Cadet Corps, the first to be established 45 years ago.
All 424 students were commissioned into the Cadet though only 124 survived the interesting, but rigorous military drills with the other 300 either running away or producing some form of medical report to exempt them from physical activities.
The historic commissioning held on the school field, which had in attendance Most Rev Gabriel Edoe Kumordji, Bishop of Keta-Akatsi Diocese, officers from the Naval Training Command, Nutekpor and sister security agencies, officials from the Municipal Education Directorate and chiefs saw the parade made of the 124 new officers and the regimental band contingent perform activities including; trooping of the band and march pass.
Mr Emmanuel Kwodwo Hope Dogodzi, Headmaster of SPACO, in an address commended the young men for enduring the painful physical tests by their seniors and the “corrective awakening of the pen-sticks of professional naval instructors” hoping, it had “virtually transformed them into junior naval officers ready to serve not only SPACO, but their motherland Ghana.”
He explained Management of the school through encouragement from the bishop, had this academic year, introduced compulsory military training among first-year students “to take a little, if not all of the civilian in them” and inject in them enough military discipline “to help them conquer evils of society by doing good as our motto states.”
“I also wish to call on all of you present to help us to build the cadet band into a formidable one befitting the status and stature of a 65-year-old institution. “We will accept contributions both in cash and in-kind,” Mr Dogodzi appealed.
Commodore Godwin Livinus Blessing, Flag Officer Commanding, Naval Training Command, Nutekpor, who reviewed the parade, congratulated the officers for surviving the training, asking them to consider it as “the beginning of their career in the Ghana Navy.”
Sharing his career experience, he advised them not to rest on their oars but tune their minds to get good grades and further their education to open doors to career opportunities for them.
The commissioned officers in their oath swore to always support and defend the rules and regulations of SPACO, bear true faith and allegiance to it, faithfully discharge the duties of a student and be of good conduct both on and off-campus and pledged to always conquer evil by doing good.
St Paul’s Senior High School and Minor Seminary established in 1958 as the first Catholic second cycle institution in the southern sector of Keta-Ho Diocese are the first in the country to have a Naval Cadet Corps inaugurated in March 1977.
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