Benard Worlali Awumee, GNA
Keta (V/R), April 5, GNA – Two Basic schools in the Keta Central Electoral Area have called for school infrastructure, teaching and learning materials support to improve academic performance.
These challenges, the heads of the schools, Keta E.P. Basic School and Keta AME Zion Basic School, said were partly to blame for the poor academic performances over the years, saying, it was important for natives and other stakeholders of the schools to get involved to address them.
The head teachers made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency.
Madam Rebecca Geraldo, Head teacher, Keta E.P Basic School mentioned inadequate teachers, computers for the study of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and inadequate furniture for the classrooms.
“We need desktop computers to be able to teach ICT with ease, desks and graph boards for easy teaching of graph-related topics. Also, we need restocking of our library.”
She expressed gratitude to the School’s old pupils and the Municipal Education Directorate for their support but “as we know, they cannot do all for us and that is why we humbly seek the support of other benevolent individuals and still call on the old pupils to come on board.”
Mr Ekuadzi George, Head teacher, Keta AME Zion School, also identified among others, inadequate classrooms to accommodate their kindergarten and lower primary pupils and a security person to guard the Junior High School (JHS) and Upper Primary block, as challenges.
“As we speak now, there is no permanent water supply for the upper primary and JHS block at the new site. We need a security person to protect our belongings over there too. Government through the Municipal Directorate is helping us as supposed to but we need more support, especially from our old pupils and benevolent natives.”
A visit by Ghana News Agency to the two schools Wednesday confirmed the concerns of the school heads.
At Keta E.P. Basic School, there were no functioning computers for teaching pupils ICT while sports equipment such as jerseys, footballs, volleyballs, netballs, among others, were also lacking.
Also, the Kindergarten block remained unroofed for years which occasioned the pupils to be combined with other lower primary classes, coupled with teacher deficit resulting in multi-grade teaching.
Keta AME Zion School on the other hand, needed desks to reduce overcrowding in the classrooms, and sports equipment
Also, a need for construction of footbridge across a stretch of the Keta Lagoon to link the JHS section at the new site with the primary section at the old site as the current situation continued to make access from one section of the school to the other, very difficult for staff and pupils.
Keta E.P. Basic School was established in 1806 as a mission school by the then-Bremen Mission while Keta AME Zion Basic School was established in 1880.
Both served as one of the pioneer schools in Anlo land in colonial days and were listed among the best-performing basic schools until recent times when adversities of the town affected the schools too.
GNA