Yaw Osei Acheampong is the eldest child of a family of seven. He comes from Nkoranza and is himself a father of three. He has been teaching for the past fourteen years, and currently teaches a total of one hundred and fifty students.
When Mr. Acheampong was younger he wanted to be a nurse. When he completed secondary school, he applied to the Berekum Nursing school. Unfortunately he did not gain admission. This made him unhappy. “I became frustrated with education so I stopped concentrating on schooling and went into farming,” he says. However, it turns out that he could not abandon education! When he had made enough money from farming, he decided to go back to school. This time, his plan was to become a teacher. He enrolled in St. Joseph’s Teacher Training School and obtained a certificate in Education. From there, he continued to acquire a Diploma and later a postgraduate degree in Education from the University of Education, Winneba.
Mr Acheampong attributes his disciplined nature to his father, a lawyer, who taught him this invaluable lesson of discipline and made it a part of him. Mr Acheampong is thankful to his father for this, because discipline has taken him far, and has also been critical in his teaching. He has assisted his school to win some competitions, and he believes this is due to hard work and discipline.
Throughout his life, Yaw has always loved STEM. In secondary school, he studied science and also studied Mathematics and Science at the tertiary level. Currently, he also receives training from ITEK, and this helps to improve his knowledge in STEM. Mr. Acheampong explains that in teaching STEM, he takes a very deliberate and practical approach, and also draws from his considerable life experience. He is confident his students will be motivated to select STEM courses as they continue their way up the educational ladder. For him, he enjoys teaching STEM mainly because it is easy to find practical examples of what his is teaching, and because of this, the students are able to participate in class, learn and remember what has been taught.
When he was told about the JUNEOS challenge by ITEK, he asked his students to select the experiment they wanted to perform, and once that was done, he began working with them to prepare for the competition. He guided them so that they could conduct the experiment successfully. Their experiment involved magnetism and its applications in everyday life.
The JUNEOS challenge has had a great influence on Yaw. He now researches much more than he used to do before. What he has learnt from the JUNEOS Challenge is that with any topic he teaches, he must ensure that it is applicable to the lives of his students. He hopes that the JUNEOS Challenge will help train students very well so that they become great scientists in the future.
In order to give you a fuller picture of who Mr Acheampong is, you might want to know that he does not spend all his time on STEM. He also enjoys watching Efiewura on TV, and is a Christian.
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Article by Kofi Konadu Berko.
Kofi Konadu Berko is passionate about education and youth development. He holds a B.A in Adult Education and Human Resource Studies from the University Of Ghana. His works have been published in the historic Afroyoung Adult anthology titled Waterbirds On the Lakeshore, Adabraka: Stories From the Center Of the World, Tampered Press and the Kalahari Review. He blogs at obolokofi.wordpress.com
Indeed he is good teacher. His students appreciate him alot in terms of teaching and advising. Mr. Osei acheampong taught me twi and integrated science and I have rejected been his student . Sir, you will one day benefit from all that you gave . Much love for papa