Ghanaian actress and movie producer, Yvonne Nelson, has openly expressed her dissatisfaction with attending Aggrey Memorial Secondary School (SHS), describing her experience as “bad” during an interview on The Career Trail program on Joy Learning TV and Joy News.
Yvonne revealed that she had no say in her choice of school, as her stepfather, who served as the PTA Chairman at the time, influenced the decision.
“My step-dad was the PTA Chair. So it was like when you are done with JSS, you are definitely going to Aggrey Memorial. That’s what happened to me. I didn’t have any choice,” she recalled. “I just knew that I would go there anyway, and it was bad. I don’t have great memories in Aggrey Memorial. It wasn’t the best of places for me.”
The actress further disclosed that she was forced into studying a subject she had no interest in.
“I was coerced, pushed, forced to do Accounting. I wasn’t interested in all the calculations and all of that. So then, I didn’t have any interest to study,” she explained.
Yvonne also shared her discomfort with the harsh disciplinary methods employed by some teachers, particularly the use of corporal punishment. She explained that the constant fear of punishment affected her academic performance.
“There were days you were afraid to go to the class because one teacher is going to beat everybody in the class. That wasn’t helping,” she revealed. The fear of corporal punishment, she said, contributed to her struggles during the Senior Secondary Certificate Examination (SSCE), especially in subjects like Costing and Accounting, which she was forced to study.
“At a point when we were writing our SSCE, I did not go in when we were writing Costing and Accounting. It was that bad. What was I going to write? I didn’t like it. Our teacher was always beating us up and I was always skipping classes. What was I going to write? I cannot balance the sheet,” she shared.
In contrast, Yvonne found that her private coach for the NOVDEC exams helped her grasp the material more effectively. “I had one man who was very good. He took me through gently. I wasn’t afraid anymore, so I took my time, and I realized that it was something I can do,” she noted.
Yvonne also spoke about the poor quality of food at Aggrey Memorial, which further contributed to her dissatisfaction with the school. “I don’t know what is happening now in Senior Secondary Schools, but I feel like we need to talk about these things. If we don’t talk about it, it will continue being the same. We talk about it, it may change,” she said.
“The food was terrible, like terrible. You wouldn’t want your child to eat that kind of food. It should be nutritious. The conditions and the way they prepared it was really horrible,” she added.
In addition to the food, Yvonne highlighted the poor hygiene at Aggrey Memorial, which made her experience even worse. “Aggrey was a nightmare,” she concluded.