Pupils sit on floor

Today can report that Kindergarten (KG) One and Two pupils at Gomoa Manpong Primary School in the Gomoa West District of the Central Region sit on the floor to write and learn during classes’ hours.

The unfortunate situation, Today learnt, was due to the lack of desks and furniture in the two classrooms.

Our visit to the school last week revealed that only five out of the about eighty two (82) pupils in KG One and Two have tables and chairs which were bought for them by their parents.

The rest, Today observed, had to lie prostrate on the dirty floor to write and learn as there are no tables and chairs in the classrooms.

And those who could not sit or lie on the floor, Today further established, had to lean against the walls to aid them to learn.

Teachers were also seen finding it difficult to move freely in the classrooms to supervise the work of the children because of the lack of space in the classrooms due to the nature of the sitting arrangements.

Besides, the pupils are also faced with poor ventilation and visibility, making learning uncomfortable for many of them.

Some teachers, who spoke to Today in an interview on condition of anonymity, lamented that the situation was not different from those in the lower primary.

According to them, the pupils do not only develop waist problems as a result of lying down to learn, but they also contract other opportunistic diseases.

At the upper primary, the teachers told Today that the number of pupils exceeds the number of tables and chairs, a situation which forces several of the pupils to sit in threes on a dual desk instead of two.

According to the teachers, some of the dual desks were even not in good state. This, the stressed, made it difficult for the children to use them.

“It looks like the schools in the rural areas have been abandoned by government. This two classroom blocks, for instance, accommodate over 80 children without tables and chairs,” they lamented.

Aside from these challenges bedeviling the school, which was established in the early 1980s, the teachers pointed out that the school was also not a benefiting from the School Feeding Programme.

“We are not on the school feeding programme so the children don’t eat at school,” the teachers revealed.