Educational Infrastructure Should Be Improved In Rural Communities

The state of poor infrastructure in rural communities continue to hinder the progress of access to education.

It would serve Ghana a lot of good if the lack of infrastructure in the educational sector is addresed.

It is in this direction that Madam Beatrice Afrakoma, a 63-year-old cocoa farmer in Akrokyere in the Sekyere Kumawu District, is calling on the government to prioritize the improvement of educational infrastructure in rural communities, to help promote quality education for rural children.

She said it was sad that children of farmers, who were toiling in remote rural communities to feed the nation, contribute significantly to the Gross Domestic product (GDP), were discriminated and denied quality education.

It was therefore the time for the government to take a second look at widening gap in educational infrastructural development in urban and rural communities and make conscious and deliberate efforts to improve classroom blocks, laboratories, libraries, teaching and learning materials as well as accommodation for teachers at the basic school level in rural communities.

Madam Afrakoma, who won the 2018 District Best Cocoa Farmer award, made the appeal through the Ghana News Agency, after receiving her award at a durbar to mark this year's farmers' celebrations at Kumawu.

She explained that, most farmers lived in villages and remote cottages with their children did not have access to quality education, especially at the basic levels.

Madam Afrakoma pointed out that deplorable road networks, coupled with bad classroom infrastructure and lack of adequate teaching and learning materials as well as qualified teachers, have conspired to deny the rural child his fair share of education.

This had made most children in rural communities unable to further in their education, hence, their inability to uplift themselves from the poverty cycle.

Madam Afrakoma urged the government to take a serious view of the contribution of farmers and take pragmatic steps to provide socio-economic infrastructure to open up rural communities to improve the living conditions of the people, especially children and women.

She said it was not enough for farmers to be celebrated on a day with awards that go to benefit a few of them.

There should deliberate efforts to ensure equity and fairness in the sharing of national resources for the benefit of all.

---GNA