A GNA Feature by Albert Futukpor
Kpalbe (S/R), April 7, GNA – It is always desirable to have a well ventilated classroom with the appropriate and adequate number of furniture for pupils and teachers to ensure effective teaching and learning.
For some schools, such as the Kpalbe Islamic Kindergarten/Primary School, however, this condition remains an elusive dream.
The Kpalbe Islamic Kindergarten/Primary School, located at the capital town of the North-East Gonja District of the Savannah Region, currently has 530 pupils, with more than half having no desks to sit on during classes to read and write.
Currently, there are 88 pupils in class two, 115 in class three (class divided into two), and 71 in class four.
This is clearly in contravention of the Ghana Education Service’s prescribed 35 pupils per class standard.
The result is that three to four pupils occupy a dual desk instead of two per desk, whilst a sizeable number sit on the bare floor to study.
Those in kindergarten one and two do not have furniture, neither do they have teachers. Due to the congestion, the classrooms are always hot, especially in the dry season when the daily temperatures hover around 40 to 43 degrees Celcius.
The situation is not different at the Kidenge Presby Kindergarten/Primary School where about half of its 152-pupil population do not have furniture, coupled with inadequate number of teachers.
The narrative for the two schools reflects the reality in all the 52 public basic schools in the district.
As the children continuously sit on the bare floor, their uniforms become dirty while they also pick dirt from the floor, which is not good for their health. This discourages most of them from remaining in school whilst some parents capitalise on the challenges as a demotivating factor not to send their children to school.
School drop-out rate is, therefore, high in the district, coupled with high numbers of out-of-school children in the communities.
Infrastructure deficits and impact on pupils’ performance
According to data compiled by the North East Gonja District Directorate of Education in February 2023, on; Enrollment, Furniture, Classrooms, and Teachers, there are 52 public basic schools in the district with a total population of 8,481.
Out the figure, 2,671 pupils are in kindergarten, 4,990 in primary, and 820 in junior high school.
However, more than half of the 8,481 do not have furniture.
On classrooms, the data showed a total number of 224 classroom blocks in the district and needs an additional 66 to address the congestion challenge.
Teachers in the district are 276 with an additional 150 needed to effectively handle the children, the data said.
This, no doubt, is negatively impacting quality basic education delivery in the area.
The District Directorate of Education says in 2019, out of 256 candidates who sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE), 110 got aggregates six to 30.
In 2020, 296 candidates sat for the BECE and 206 got the pass mark, whilst in 2021, out of the 316 candidates, a pass grade was obtained by 179.
Mr Seidu Tanko, the Assemblyman for Kpalbe Electoral Area, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said: “The state of education in my electoral area is very bad and poor. We are far behind.”
“The Kpalbe Islamic Kindergarten/Primary School had teacher problems but now it is better. The upper primary has teachers. It is the Kindergarten (1) and (2) pupils, who are now without teachers.”
“We are appealing to the District Directorate of Education to try to get teachers for us.”
The interventions
The challenges, as outlined above, require an all hands-on-deck approach to address. In line with this, the Assembly is collaborating with some development partners to help solve the problem.
Mr Mohammed Musah Tindawu, the North East Gonja District Chief Executive (DCE), told the GNA at Kpalbe that the Assembly prioritised quality education for the children, in spite of its lack of resources.
Last year, it procured 500 dual desks, which were distributed to schools in the area.
“This year, we are working to procure and distribute 1,000 dual desks to the schools as part of efforts to address the situation. This is because without furniture the school blocks will inure to nothing…” Mr Tindawu said.
The Assembly was a beneficiary of the Gulf of Guinea Northern Regions Social Cohesion (SOCO) project, but as a result of the many education infrastructure deficits, it had decided to commit more resources from the project into constructing new classroom blocks and rehabilitating dilapidated ones to address the congestion problems in the schools, he said.
The SOCO project is a multi-million-dollar multi-country initiative to provide support to the northern parts of the Gulf of Guinea countries that suffer instabilities due to food insecurity, climate change, conflict and violence.
Mr Tindawu lauded the activities of the Citizen-led Educational Accountability and Responsiveness in Ghana (CLEAR) project in the, saying it awoken the consciousness of citizens, especially parents, to prioritise their children’s education.
The CLEAR project, being implemented in the district by School for Life, a non-governmental organisation, with funding from the Global Partnership for Education, under the Education Out Loud programme, seeks to mobilise citizen groups and build their capacities.
This is expected to enhance their capacity to engage education stakeholders to address the many challenges facing basic education delivery in their communities.
The DCE said some citizen groups from the CLEAR project communities had engaged the Assembly on the classroom infrastructure challenges and he had committed to supporting to address them.
He mentioned the Kpandu and Jinlo citizen groups, which had request of him to pay attention to their classroom situation, and he had pledged the Assembly’s commitment to constructing a new block for Kpandu while Jinlo would get a JHS block.
Some of the schools would also receive a face-lift through renovation works.
Mr Richard Achinani Sepaga, the North East Gonja District Director of Education, acknowledged that the situation was not the best and said efforts were underway to address it.
He also touched on the CLEAR Project, which was sensitising the citizens on their role to support education delivery while building their capacities to hold duty-bearers accountable.
“The CLEAR approach is helping in shaping the minds of the people to prioritise the education of their children… It has awoken us the duty-bearers to be more responsive to the issues….”
Mr Sayibu Ibrahim, Chairman, School Management Committee, Kpalbe Islamic Kindergarten/Primary School, said through the activities of the CLEAR project, parents had started contributing money to clad a pavilion on the school premises to provide an additional classroom to reduce congestion.
The team was working on its action plans gradually would continue to engage the relevant bodies to address the challenges.
Government’s education sector priorities
The Education Strategic Plan (ESP) 2018-2030 acknowledged the challenges in the country’s basic education sector, setting out a strategic goal; “Improved equitable access to and participation in quality basic education.”
The Plan says basic education should provide all learners with the foundational skills and confidence to prepare themselves to make informed choices and choose between different learning streams at the secondary level.
Whilst the country is in the fifth year of the implementation of the ESP, not much has been done to ameliorate the challenges bedevilling the basic education sector in most parts of the country, especially the rural areas.
At the global level, the Government is a signatory to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) where the Goal (4) emphasises access to quality education.
This requires a lot more action on the ground through allocation of resources to address the persistent challenges.
The way forward
There is no denying the fact that it is generally difficult to study under conditions such as what prevails in basic schools in the North East Gonja District.
Even though the District Assembly and the District Directorate of Education are aware of the challenges and are determined to reverse the trend, they need to double up their efforts to ensure the children receive quality education to prepare them for the future.
This is critical to fulfilling the objectives of Ghana’s ESP 2018-20230, as well as enhancing the country’s efforts at attaining the SDG (4).
GNA