How safe are our kids at school?

The abominable death last Tuesday of an eight-year-old pupil of a school at Nima in Accra is an incident any person would pray should not happen.
The Class Three pupil of the Greater Care International School, Kamel Bashiru, was reported to have fallen into the school’s pit latrine, leading to his death. The incident has left many asking questions about how safe schools in the country are.

Indeed, it is surprising that in Accra, Ghana’s capital city and in this 21st century, an international school will operate a ‘pit’ latrine, with the Inspectorate Division of the Ghana Education Service (GES) doing business as usual.

The Inspectorate Division is responsible for ensuring that every school is safe for all – pupils, teachers and other workers.

The Daily Graphic grieves with Bashiru’s family, friends, classmates and schoolmates.

The incident brings to the fore issues of safety and generally how we, as a nation, handle our children in schools.

While it is a fact that many schools have facilities that are up to standard, others lack amenities, ranging from classroom blocks to other structures that may disqualify them from operating as schools.

The availability of sanitary facilities is an issue that is of grave concern. It is a well-known fact that the absence of such facilities in some schools has the tendency to affect enrolment and attendance, especially by females.

That is why, where they exist, they must be up to standard and not death traps.

In times past, most classrooms had two doors but more windows, allowing for easy ventilation and escape in times of emergency. What we see now is the use of honeycomb windows, with some classrooms having only one entrance.

This situation, apart from obscuring vision and also leading to poor ventilation, leaves children with no escape route in any eventuality.

What is worrying is that this style of classroom construction appears to be the trend, with many government-sponsored school projects adopting it.

We urge the authorities to reconsider this.

Another issue of safety regarding our children’s schooling is the issue of transportation. While it is common to see minors, unaccompanied or accompanied by other minors, struggle for transport to and from school, many parents and guardians who send their children and wards to school use rickety and overloaded vehicles.

This must also be of concern.

The incident at the Greater Care School is a clarion call on the GES to sit up and perform its inspectorate duties as expected. The school has been approved to run and the Daily Graphic expects that it would have toilet facilities that will be up to standard.

The GES should conduct an audit immediately and ensure that all schools have standard sanitary facilities.

Since children’s bodies are young and still developing, they are more susceptible than those of adults to harm from hazards. The conditions in some of these schools are so appalling that many children are healthier at the weekends when they are at home than they are in school.

Never again should we wake up to such an incident.

Daily Graphic/Ghana