Over 100 girls of the Mawuli Senior High School in Ho are sleeping in the open, because the school authorities have refused them the use of the newly-completed 300-bed capacity dormitory block.

According to the school authorities, they are waiting for President John Evans Atta Mills to commission the new facility before moving the students into it. “We are awaiting directives from the Volta Regional Director of Education, as to what to do. We cannot move the students into the structure on our own,” the Assistant Headmaster in-charge of Administration, Mr. Hopson Dzah, insisted.

Speaking during a visit by The Times newspaper to the school last Tuesday, in the company of Mr. Henry Ametefe, Regional Co-ordinator of NADMO, to verify news that students were sleeping in the open, Mr. Dzah said, “The newly-built dormitory block cannot be used without the blessing of the education authorities.”

'Times' investigations revealed that the completed dormitory was one of the projects that President Mills was to have inaugurated during his tour of the Volta Region which was postponed. The postponement stalled the inauguration for which reason the school authorities are preventing the students from using the facility. Unhappy about the situation, Mr. Ametefe appealed to the school authorities to allow the students to use the idle dormitory while they sought authorisation from the GES. “The welfare of the students is paramount and it is important for them to use the place because it was built for them,” he said, adding that he was sure “the President would be unhappy that students have been sleeping on the veranda while a 300 bed capacity dormitory block stands idle.”

He advised the school authorities to liaise with the Regional Director of Education to see how to resolve the matter.

The Mawuli Senior High School has a student population of about 1,957 with many of the girls sleeping on the veranda for lack of dormitories. The new dormitory block was built by the Ghana Education Trust Fund to alleviate the school’s accommodation problem.

The President had to postpone his visit to the Volta Region a number of times in the past.