A Very Pathetic Story About Naa Polkuu Kindergarten School

My desire to contributing to quality education in my district (Nandom) and beyond is giving me serious headache as I am being exposed to some damming revelations day-in day-out as I visit some distinguished schools in the district. My first visit and exposure to the plights of pupils at the Guo D/A primary school has ignited the spirit and opened the Pandora's box for visiting other schools within the district to check and compare them regarding their infrastructure, teaching and learning materials, furniture among others.

One may be wondering whether I am a Circuit Supervisor per what I stated above. Not at all. I am only a concern and responsible member of my district who has at heart, the education of the younger generation. For some years now, the performance of our younger brothers and sisters in the district has not been appreciable. The causes of the speedily falling standard of education within the district have not been clearly identified.

But I strongly believe that the major cause of the performance crisis in our schools is the poor and weak foundations the pupils get from the Kindergarten and primary schools. This truly, has been the very foundation for so many failures in the BECE and WASSCE.

It is on this premise that I took it upon myself to visit the basic schools in the district to unearth the odds, predicaments and plights of the pupils and teachers in these schools. I believe that identifying and unearthing these predicaments to the world will certainly touch some benevolent people's hearts to help these future leaders.

My unflinching anxiety to comparing the town schools to the village schools in the district took me to Naa Polkuu primary school in the heart of Nandom town in the Upper West Region of Ghana. This school happened to be the oldest school in town which was established around 1946. It has produced lots of learned professors, doctors, lecturers, priests, scholars and other dignified personalities for the country and the world at large. This school was named after one of the great prominent paramount chiefs from Nandom. Naa Polkuu primary and the Arabic school feed Naa Imoro Junior high school at Nabugang with students within the district.

In similar vain, Naa Polkuu Kindergarten school feeds its primary school with pupils.

One might be attempting to picture the structure of this aged school that has turned out a lot of renowned human resources who are contributing in no small way to the development of mother Ghana and the world at large.

It is therefore sickening for a school of this caliber situated right in the heart of the district capital to have its KG pupils sitting on a cold cemented floor to learn in this 21st century. How do we then expect these children perform well in their final exams? Do we actually have leaders who are so concern and committed to the wellbeing of the younger generation? I believe that our ability to give quality education to these children will transform this country. In fact, I am not a prophet of doom, but as leaders of this country shamelessly continue to pay less attention to the education of pupils in the Kindergarten and the primary schools, armed robbery and its associated agents will continue to be in ascendency and thus remain the center of discussion in our media outlets.

In all sincerity, I must admit that I wrote this piece with immeasurable passion, having visited Naa Polkuu KG school. Sadly speaking, I was taken aback when I saw the pupils in the class lying on their stomachs while writing. Godly speaking, I was convinced that the town schools would be far better than the village schools in terms of some of these things but I was proven otherwise on my visit to the school. What a shock! This is absolutely unfathomable. You can imagine the health implications of sitting on a very cold floor to learn. No wonder most of these children are suffering from pneumonia and other cold related diseases. My readers, can you imagine what your child will go through after sitting on a very cold cemented floor for hours after a heavy downpour of rain? That is exactly what the Naa Polkuu KG pupils are going through in school at this season of heavy rains.

What I found difficult to understand is the proximity of the school to the district assembly. For goodness sake, if any school at all should lack some of these basic things, the caliber of Naa Polkuu KG should not be part of those schools. At least, a school that has produced prolific human resource in the country should not be put to this shame. I am without a modicum of doubt that I single past student of this school can support the school with some of these basic things.

In all sincerity, I am very surprised that this school is still struggling on its feet to providing quality education to its students. My encounter with the head teacher indicates that teaching and learning has not been going on as expected but there is little she could do. Pupils sleep as lesson is ongoing. Teacher finds it difficult to control the class as pupils sit in no particular order to learn. Pupils uniforms get dirty everyday as they lie on the dusty and cold floor to write.

The teachers at the Kindergarten school have inadequate teacher's table to use. All these make both the teachers and pupils uncomfortable during teaching and learning.

Conclusively, the head teacher and the pupils are pleading with the government, NGOs, alumnae, benevolent persons and all stakeholders to support them since they (pupils) are the future leaders of this country. Let me add that the future of this country lies in the hands of these pupils hence the need to give them the best of education.

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