Save Denyaseman Sec/Tech from collapsing-Pleads management

Poano (Ash), June 23, GNA - The management of Denyaseman Secondary/Technical School at Poano in the Amansie East District has appealed to the government to act urgently to save the school from imminent collapse.

The school, a community one, which scored 100 per cent in the 2002/2003 Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (SSSCE) with four students qualifying for university admission is ranked among the worst deprived in the country.

Mr Jacob Kor, the Headmaster and Mr Baffour Awuah, a member of the management committee, who made the joint appeal, said apart from the lack of structures like classrooms, hostel and bungalows as well as even furniture, it has no permanent tutors.

All those who teach in the school are part-timers from the Akrokerri Training College, Bekwai SDA Secondary and Cardinal Tonko Secondary Schools at Trede and for months their allowances would be outstanding.

They said, the textbook situation was another source of bother and put the ratio at five students to one textbook, while the library is not just poorly equipped but stocked with antiquated books.

Mr Kor and Mr Awuah noted that students in the school were, as they put it, "very promising" and said given the necessary upgrading, it could become one of the leading institutions in the country. They said in the last SSSCE for example, the student who scored the best aggregate of 10 in the whole of the Amansie East and West districts was from the school.

Besides, it topped an inter-secondary schools quiz competition recently held in the district.

Mr Kor and Mr Awuah said over the years, they had run the school basically on funding from people within its catchments area, pointing out that, this had always been in the form of fund-raising harvests and appeal for donations made to the churches.

"We have even planned to organise a fund-raising on July 1, this year. We think the people are being overstretched and that the government has to listen to the voices of the neglected, wailing in the wilderness".

The Denyase Traditional Council established the school in 1993 with an initial student population of about 150 but it now has only 95 students.