Senior high schools to get additional infrastructure

Kaleo (U/W), April 7, GNA - Eleven out of the 18 senior high schools in the Upper West Region are to be provided with additional classrooms and dormitories to enable them to admit new students next academic year.

Each of the schools would be provided with six classrooms and two-storey blocks under phase one of the government's programme. The programme is to help address the problem of inadequate classrooms and dormitories in many of the senior high schools in the country, a situation that is posing challenges to headmasters in the admission of students next September.

Mr. Fabian Belieb, the Upper West Regional Director of Education, said this when he inspected uncompleted school projects in some Senior High and Basic schools in the Nadowli District on Tuesday. The Nadowli District Assembly organized the tour and it was to enable Mr. Belieb and Mr. Abu Kasanbata, the District Chief Executive of Nadowli, to have information about the infrastructure challenges of schools in the district.

Mr. Belieb said work on the projects would start in May and they are expected to be completed in September. He said admission period of students for 2010 academic year would be stretched from September to December.

At the Kaleo Senior High/Technical School, Mr. Belieb inspected two-storey boys and girls' dormitory blocks that had been abandoned and the contractor is not known to the school's authorities. He said from now to September, between 100 and 120 two- storey dormitory blocks would be provided and about 400 six-unit classroom blocks would be built within the period and stocked with furniture. Mr. Belieb said he was unhappy that the school had no kitchen and this compelled cooks to prepare meals in the open for the 645 students, exposing the meals to flies and dust.

The situation, he said, is worrying during the rainy season, a period the cooks are unable to prepare meals for the students. Mr. Felix Anzunnah, the Headmaster of the School, said government's involvement in the provision of infrastructure for the school had been minimal and as a result, there were infrastructure challenges facing the school.

He said but for the interventions of a group of Lassain people in the United Kingdom who provided a dinning hall and an assembly hall for the school, it would have been without those facilities. Mr Anzunnah said he would partition the dinning hall and the assembly hall into classrooms if the need arises to cater for the admission of fresh students in September.

At Meguo Day Nursery in Meguo, 19 children in Nursery One and 20 in Nursery Two were found to have been housed in a dilapidated structure for their lessons.

The children lacked furniture and were sitting on the bare floor and looked dirty. Also at Samatigu Junior Hig h School two teachers, Mr. Desmond Kunveng and Mr. Albert Volsuuri who have been teaching in the school for the past two years, had not been receiving salary. Mr. Belieb inspected structures at Queen of Peace Senior High School and said the school would benefit from a two-storey dormitory block and six classroom blocks under the programme. Mr. Kasanbata expressed regret about the poor state of education facilities in the district and appealed to the Ghana Education Service and other development partners to complement the district assembly's efforts in providing infrastructure, reading and learning materials to promote quality education.

He said the district assembly would collaborate with the regional directorate of the Ghana Education Service to organise in-service training for pupil teachers to upgrade their skills and knowledge in the methodology and techniques of modern teaching. Madam Mary-Grace Bonye, the Nadowli District Director of Education, called on benevolent organisations to assist the district in the provision of school infrastructure. She said lack of trained teachers in many of the basic schools in the area was a hindrance to quality teaching and learning.