Schools record low attendance due to Monday rains

Correspondence from Eastern Region

Heavy rains that pelted most of the Eastern, Greater Accra and other regions on Monday morning have affected attendance at some schools in the affected areas.

Due to the heavy rains that brought much of the areas to a standstill, schools recorded lower than usual attendance, with some teachers also either coming in late or absenting themselves due to delayed commutes.

Though regular classes begin at 8am for most schools, GhanaWeb visited some classes and for the few students who showed up began after 9am, in some
instances, after 10am.

Monday morning rains began at 5:45 am in most parts of the Eastern Region and ended at approximately shortly before 10am, trapping pupils, students, teachers and school heads in their various homes.

As a result, several roads became impassible in the Eastern Region, preventing some students and teachers from getting to their schools.

At the Roman Catholic primary school at Agomanya, headmaster of the school, Tetteh Matthew Atter though could not provide the exact attendance figure, he nevertheless said less than half of his 779 student population turn out for school.

"Twenty out of the 26 teachers reported for school due to bad roads and floods in their communities of residence," the headteacher explained.

At the JHS department, 111 out of 350 students reported with two teachers unable to report.

At the Anglican JHS at Odumase-Krobo, the headmistress of the school, Erica Sackey disclosed that 163 out of 240 students came to school.

She said, “We’re in school but let’s say one-third of the learners are not around but all teachers are in school.”

The head added that though the final year students managed to walk through the rains to report for a special class session at 7am, the story for the JHS 1 and 2 was different as classes began after 9am.

Only forty-percent of the total enrolment of the Oborpah M/A basic school showed up today. The headmaster of the school, Daniel Nartey was himself unable to report to school due to the situation.

The situation was also no different at the Yilo State Basic School as less than half of the student population showed up according to David Ofosu, the headmaster of the school.

The headteacher of the Kasunya D/A Basic school near Asutuare in the Greater Accra Region also presented a bleak picture of the situation. Duho David Kwabla revealed that the school suffered an extremely low students and teacher
attendance due to the situation.

Detailing the attendance for the day, Duho said, “for JHS, 25 of them reported out of 78 and for primary, we had 30 of them reporting out of 320.”

The situation was no different from the teachers with 6 out of 13 reporting.
Giving reasons for the high rate of absence, Kwabla said most teachers and students stayed away due to the muddy nature of most roads in the area.

He added: “Accessing the school is also a problem because the place is very muddy and looking at the nature of the rains, its quite difficult accessing the schools.”

The school head explained that the low turnout on Monday was not conducive for teaching and learning as it made the activities difficult.

The low attendance also led to the early closure of some schools.

A 13-year-old JHS 1 student of the Agormanya R/C JHS Joseph Amanor explained that he failed to attend school because the rains stopped late.

Since the Ghana Education Service (GES) issued no official announcement to keep schools shut due to the heavy rain, almost all schools remained open.

It's unclear if arrangements would be made for time lost at affected schools to be recovered later in the term.