Junior High School (JHS) students of the Kwasi Nyarko L/A Junior High School (JHS) in the Upper West Akyem District in the Eastern Region are living in fear because they don’t know when the next heavy downpour will bring their school building down.
In 2011, during a rainstorm, the walls of the Form Three classroom collapsed while lessons were ongoing. Since then, the school building has not been renovated.
When the team from the Junior Graphic visited the school, it was clear that the remaining two classrooms, Forms One and Two, had developed deep cracks and the building is likely to crumble any day.
On a tour of the school led by the Headmaster of the school, Mr Eric Okley Tetteh and Barima Tsum II, Ankobeahene of Kwasi Nyarko, the Junior Graphic team saw that some of the iron sheets used in roofing the building were the old ones which were ripped off by the rainstorm four years ago.
Huge holes have also developed in the roofing sheets of the building, which results in the classrooms being flooded anytime it rains.
According to Mr Tetteh, the school building needed to be reconstructed rather than refurbished to save lives because the cracks in the walls were too frightening.
He said both staff members and students were always scared and don’t come to school regularly, especially, when it threatens to rain. Their fear was that either the building would collapse on them or the roof would be ripped off.
Mr Tetteh said since staff members had no Staff Common Room, they were always at the mercy of reptiles, especially snakes, which sometimes fell from the trees under which they sat.
In a telephone conversation, the District Chief Executive (DCE) of Upper West Akyem District, Mr Ohene Assifo Bekoe, acknowledged the fact that the Kwasi Nyarko JHS was in a deplorable state, adding that “the district is a young one with a lot of developmental challenges.”
According to him, the problems were being addressed gradually but they were concentrating on communities in dire need of essential projects and facilities.
He said a clinic had been constructed at Kwasi Nyarko while work on the construction of a police station was ongoing. Besides, two other schools were being constructed in other communities in the district.
Mr Bekoe indicated that because of limited resources, development was not moving as fast as it should but he was positive that next year, the district would get support from the GETFund and the Kwasi Nyarko JHS will be one of the beneficiary schools.
