Member of Parliament for Sissala West Constituency in the Upper West Region, Mohammed Adams Sukparu, has revealed that, half of basic school infrastructure in his Distract have no decent infrastructure.
According to him, there are only 60 basic schools the district and in 30 of these schools students either study under sheds or in buildings with no roofs and cracked walls, and buildings so dilapidated that if nothing urgent is done, we could be faced with a number of fatal incidents on our hands.
In a statement read on the floor of Parliament on the dilapidated state of basic school buildings in The Sissala West District, the MP recollected incidences where on 31st December, 2017, a primary school building collapsed in the Odoben Brakwa District in the Central Region killing 6 Kindergarten pupils; in Nkurankan in the Eastern region, and other parts of the country. “I am not a prophet of doom but I dare say we also risk such a calamity if nothing urgent is done in the Sissala West district”.
He stated that, “this problem of deteriorated infrastructure seems to contribute to the unacceptable literacy rate in the district which according to the Sissala West District Assembly has only 16,271 literates out of 40,678 individuals aged 11 and above in the district”.
“Arguably, the basic school level forms the most significant foundation for the education of every child. Given that many of these dilapidated structures are unsafe for use, many children quit along the line leaving just a few graduates from my district each year”, he noted.
It also came out that, the poor buildings in the District has contributed to the poor performance of students who sit for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) with only 5.3% making it to the tertiary level” according to the District Assembly.
The MP therefore appealed to the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GetFund) as a matter of urgency to come to their aid of these 30 schools in the Sissala West District.
He also extended the same appeal to religious bodies, public and private institutions to come on board to augment the efforts of his office and the District Assembly.
Story filed by Edzorna Francis Mensah
