By Stanley Senya
Accra, Nov. 08, GNA – Neglected buildings and inadequate furniture are a threat to schools in Zabzugu District, in the Northern region.
Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch), in partnership with the Coalition Against privatization and Commercialization of Education (CAPCOE) with support of OXFAM International, has initiated advocacy on equitable deployment of resources, to achieve equity in learning outcomes among urban and rural deprived school communities in Ghana.
A report by Eduwatch indicates that 60 per cent of pupils in Zabzugu District are deprived of basic education while 20 per cent are school dropouts.
In Ghana, although governments have attempted to promote equality basic education for children, there are still many challenges that confront basic education delivery, especially in the hard-to-reach areas of the country.
The basic facilities to facilitate access to education are either non-existent or in a very deplorable condition, these facilities include, lack of infrastructure, inadequate trained teachers, students having to travel long distance to school and lack of learning materials.
The report explained that pupils of Zabzugu make lot of spelling mistakes when learning due to unavailability of writing boards in schools.
A member of the school management committee of Chakpulugu primary school said, “this furniture and infrastructure problem has been a disincentive to our children to attend school. The children in our community see school as a punishment and would rather prefer to farm to make some money for themselves.”
The study also shows that due to unavailability of classroom buildings, 40 per cent of schools in Zabzugu practice multi-grade teaching, meaning two classes are merged for one teacher at the primary school level.
These have become the major challenges and a menace to children living in marginalized and deprived rural communities in the district.
However, systematic reforms are needed to end the deepening inequalities in basic education provided across rural and urban communities in deprived areas.
Quality learning outcome can only be achieved through increased investment and resourcing of basic education.
Public basic schools in deprived communities should receive the same resources available to schools in the cities, especially trained teachers, pupils, and students from rural schools would perform much better than the current situation in Zabzugu.
GNA