Correspondence from Bono Region

The Notre Dame Girls Senior High School at Fiapre, in the Sunyani West Municipal Assembly of the Bono Region, has appealed for more bungalows for its teachers.

The Notre Dame Girls Senior High School is the only girl's school in the Sunyani West municipality and one of the two girls' schools (aside from Our Ladies of Providence Girls SHS at Japekrom in Jaman South) in the Bono Region.

The school, which has received a lot of academic plaudits over the years, and was adjudged second best performing school in Ghana by the Ghana Education Service last year, is faced with the challenges of accommodation for its teaching staff on campus.

Mr James Boakye-Yiadom, chairman of the parent-teacher - association of the school, made this known and appealed to parents, individuals and cooperate organizations to come to their aide.

The PTA chairman, who was once a member of the teaching staff of the school, expressed worry about the negative effect of insufficient teachers' bungalows on campus and called for immediate support.

"The school, together with the PTA, has embarked on a project to construct bungalows for teachers on campus. We started with the construction of a two-unit semi-detached bungalow but that has not been completed for the past three years due to lack of funding".

According to the PTA chairman, the project was to be solely funded by PTA dues. ''This three-year-old stagnated semi-detached bungalow is an initiation of the PTA to get accommodation for teachers on campus but the problem has been with how to levy parents because of government directives not to levy students after the implementation of free education''.

A teacher, who spoke to Ghanaweb, complained of how insufficient bungalows on campus affect both the teachers and the students. He said ''we are to provide extra tuition to our students at any point in time after the normal school hours and this has been a challenge due to the additional cost we have to incur as lorry fares from town back to campus each day''.

In a brief interaction with one of the house mistresses, supervision of students at prep hours has been a challenge for the limited staff on campus. ''The few teachers on campus have to continuously move from class to class during prep hours to ensure effective learning'', she added.

"The school is noted for its high level of discipline and in order to inculcate this culture into the students, especially in these days of huge numbers, we require more teachers on campus to play this role to mould the students to conform to our tradition".

The housemistress, therefore appealed to parents, organizations, groups and individuals, to support them with building materials and any kind of contribution to complete the three-year-old stagnated two-unit semi-detached bungalow.