Dilapidated school building threatens pupils’ lives
The lives of pupils and teachers of Twumasikrom D/A Basic School at Twumasikrom, a farming community in the Sunyani West District of the Brong Ahafo Region, are under serious threat as academic work is conducted in an old dilapidated building with visible cracks, with parts of the roof of the structure ripped off.
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Even though the school has enough teachers with adequate teaching and learning materials, lack of furniture and the bad state of the building negatively affect teaching and learning as pupils have to make do with the old dilapidated structure without enough furniture.
Some of the pupils who do not have access to desks are compelled to use benches borrowed from the community, while others carry chairs from their various homes to school daily.
Establishment
The school was established in 1988 by the community members and was absorbed by the government a few months after its inauguration.
The total enrolment of the school is 363, consisting of 128 kindergarten pupils, 163 primary pupils and 72 junior high school students, with 23 teachers, including the headteacher.
As a result of the current situation, the school’s authorities have merged some of the classes such as the kindergarten one and two into one class.
Headmaster’s remarks
The Headmaster of the school, Mr Peter Baffour-Diawuo, told the Daily Graphic that for more than two years, the students had been studying in the dilapidated structure, but the situation had worsened as a result of rainstorms that hit the area and totally ripped off the roof of the kindergarten block.
According to him, he had over the past two years reported the bad condition of the school structure to the Sunyani West District Assembly, but the situation still persisted, expressing worry about how the school had been neglected by the government and other service providers over the years.
Mr Baffour-Diawuo who has been in charge of the school for 10 years said the institution needed classrooms, and threatened that, “If the problem persists, the school authorities may be compelled to merge the classes or run a shift system.”
SOS message
Mr Baffour-Diawuo, therefore, sent an SOS message to the government, benevolent organisations, institutions, non-governmental organisations and individuals to come to the aid of the school and help save the children’s lives and future. He also appealed to parents and guardians to procure chairs for their wards.
He explained that he had made several appeals to the district assembly for renovation of the structure but that had not yielded any positive result.