New schools in the North have no money

Wa, March 16, GNA - A number of day Senior Secondary/Technical Schools which were absorbed into the boarding system in the three Northern Regions have not received funding from government to enable them to operate.

Mr Charles Nyaabo, Northern Regional Chairman of the Conferences of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), who disclosed this, said all efforts by the Heads of affected institutions to get the money to run these schools had so far proved futile.

He said the schools operating the boarding system, which began this academic year have not been allocated any funds by the Central Government, and with the schools about to go for holidays in the first week of April, their fate was still in the balance.

Mr Nyaabo, who is the Headmaster of Damongo Secondary School in the Northern Region made this known at the seventh joint Northern conference of Heads of Assisted secondary/Technical Schools in the three northern regions at Wa on Thursday.

In the Upper West Region, the Islamic Secondary School at Wa and Ko Senior Secondary School in the Lawra District have been seriously affected by the delay in the release of the funds.

The three-day conference, which was under theme, " the impact of education in the three northern regions after 50 years of independence" offered a platform for the heads to discuss common problems that militate against quality education in the three regions. Professor Raymond Bening, former vice-chancellor of the University of Development Studies (UDS), who was the Guest Speaker, said when the PNDC took the bold step to establish the UDS, the high hopes of procuring foreign financial assistance to support its establishment could not be realised.

This was because the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, which funded the Tertiary Education Project for the four public universities to revamp education, did not favour the establishment of a University in Northern Ghana.

Professor Bening said the World Bank's stance meant that the University was grossly under-funded and this affected all the operations of the institution, however, he noted that the University has clearly demonstrated what a determined people, could do for themselves. Mr Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minster urged people at the helm of affairs not to bemoan the past and throw their hands in despair, but rather move to the realm of effectively exploiting opportunities and changing their mindset from dependency to independence.

He said it was regrettable that schools that hitherto served as models and sources of attraction for people from the South had all lost and had become pale shadows of their glorious past.
Old boys and girls of these institutions must therefore demonstrate more love and concern for their alma mater since their collective efforts in that direction would yield the desired results for their schools, he stated.