A Senior High Technical School Under Trees?

 
The authorities of schools located in our rural areas are crying foul. They feel discriminated against by organs of state whose duty it is to cater for their welfare - the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the Ghana Education Service (GES).

'Government should not discriminate against second-cycle institutions in the distribution of logistics and infrastructural support to schools, but ensure that resources to educational institutions are evenly distributed, irrespective of where a school is located,' said Mr. A.Y. Fiashide.

Addressing newsmen at the 2 nd Speech and Prize-giving & Homecoming Day of Abutia Senior High Technical School, Mr. Fiashide, Headmaster, lamented that certain elite SHS are given preferential treatment in the provision of school buses, classroom blocks and dormitories.

Citing the example of his own institution, the Headmaster disclosed that it was established by the Abutia Community in 1991, and taken over by the government in 1992, but 22 solid years after, the 'single four-unit classroom block provided by the community was the only block that is being used as classroom block, administration, library and store room.'

Consequently, Mr. Fiashide said: 'Classes are being held under trees, a development that affects teaching and learning, as classes are suspended any time it rained.

'It is with a heavy heart that I say this; most students and teachers sent to the school refuse to report, because the facilities we have are nothing to write home about. The days of holding classes under trees, while teachers use shades of trees as Staff Common Room, as is the case here, should not be allowed to happen,' he pleaded.

Headmaster Fiashide commended the school's Parent Teacher Association for providing the school with two additional classroom blocks, which have made possible the introduction of boarding facilities.

He expressed regret that the government absorbed the school on to the national grid on paper only, but has neglected it in the provision of needed facilities, with all 84 teaching staff staying in rented accommodation outside the campus.

The Chronicle finds this most appalling – A Senior Technical School that holds classes under trees, as well as a Staff Common Room and its science laboratories, if it has any? And we thought classrooms with the sky as the ceiling are only at the basic level? Do our educational authorities have any conscience at all?

No wonder the government has imposed quotas on state universities to commandeer places for students from 'deprived SHSs?' By what stretch of imagination can such over-deprived students write the same examinations with the dada bas of the private international schools?

The Chronicle finds it in bad taste, the suggestion by the Volta Regional Director of Education that the authorities at Abutia SHTS may be the architects of their misfortune, through his directive to them to 'apply to the right source to enable them attract Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) assistance to address some of their infrastructural challenges.' He glories in the academic achievements of the school, in spite of its deprivations, and cannot, therefore, be heard to claim ignorance of the situation.

We concede that Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemeng is not yet a year on her seat as Education Minister, so would not blame her, for now. But, we would not always be this charitable.

We expect her to do the necessary magic to get assistance to the Abutia Senior High Technical School immediately, while it queues up on the suffocating GETFund protocol. A school bus would be a worthy first effort. We would also urge the honourable Minister to urgently call for the list of such totally neglected state SHSs like Abutia, and set herself the target of curing Ghana education of such eyesores before the end of her first 4-year tenure.

Those who sincerely serve the needs of the people always have the omnipotent protection of God Almighty.That is a promise!

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