Enrolment of children in the Jindabuo Basic School in the Sawla-Tuna-Kalba District is declining owing to the poor state of the school’s infrastructure, Abass Braimah, the Assembly Member for the Jindabuo West Electoral Area, has said.
He said the school was also faced with inadequate furniture challenges thereby compelling the children to either sit or lie on the bare floor to receive academic instructions.
Braimah, who said this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at Jindabuo during a visit to the community, said the twin challenges of the school were pushing some children out of school which had been a serious concern to the community leaders.
“Some of them lie on the floor to write because there are no desks. Because of this, the school population is going down, some children are dropping out”, he explained.
Briamah said the Jindabuo D/A Primary School was founded in 1961 and was currently the most populated primary school in the STK District while the Junior High School was also founded in 1989.
A visit to the school by the GNA revealed that some windows and doors of the classrooms had broken while the cemented floors had deteriorated rendering the floor dusty with holes all over.
Braimah said all efforts to get the district assembly to rehabilitate the school had not been successful as the assembly complained of lack of funds to that effect.
He said, as part of efforts to remedy the situation, he had led the community to mobilize about 40 bags of cement and scout for gravels and sand to cement the floors while awaiting support from the district assembly and other stakeholders including the Members of Parliament for the area, Andrews Chiwitey Dary.
The Assembly Member also raised concerns about the inadequate number of trained teachers at the school which was also impeding effective teaching and learning at the school.
According to him, the school had a population of more than one thousand children but was managed by only seven trained teachers and assisted by volunteers.
Braimah said there were only three teachers handling the Junior High School “A” and “B” while four teachers were taking care of the primary “A” and “B”.
“The pressure is too much for the teachers to bear. Already the school environment is not motivating the teachers to give off their best.
“The school is dying and education is the future of every society so if education is dying in any community that means the community has no future”, he observed.
Talking about other development issues at the community, the Assembly Member mentioned poor drainage system at the community as a serious challenge to them as houses got flooded anytime it rained.
He appealed to the stakeholders to support them by improving the drainage system to help save lives and property in the community, especially as the rain sets in.
Source: GNA