Swedru Salvation Army Basic School to get new block
The Municipal Chief Executive for Agona West, Mrs Justina Marigold Assan, has cut the sod for the construction of a six-unit gated classroom block with ancillary facilities for the Swedru Salvation Army Basic School, in the Central Region.
The project, to be executed by Delovely Company Limited at a cost of GH¢424,000 and being funded from the OPEC Fund for International Development, is expected to be completed by the end of March 2018.
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The school is facing infrastructural challenges which is affecting efforts to provide quality education for pupils.
New classroom block
A four- unit classroom that accommodates the JHS pupils, as well as the building for the Primary Six pupils of the A stream, had been in a deplorable state for the past four years but due to absence of support for the construction of a new block, the pupils still use the building.
According to the school’s officials, the problem was affecting academic work as the building had become a death trap.
The B stream, according to the school’s records, was constructed in 1965 and had not seen any major renovation since its construction, and posed danger to its occupants.
In the March 10, 2014 edition of the Daily Graphic, the paper reported an appeal by authorities of the school to the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Agona West Municipal Assembly (AWMA) for a new classroom block to be constructed, so that the old block could be demolished to protect the lives of the pupils.
GES intervention
In an attempt to protect the lives of the pupils, the GES, in collaboration with the municipal assembly in September 2017, moved the four classes, made up of about 300 pupils, to a pavilion at the Public Works Department (PWD) yard which shares a wall with the school.
The pavilion was partitioned to accommodate all the four classes resulting in congestion and overcrowding in the makeshift structure, a situation which also created inconvenience for some decentralised departments whose offices are in the same building.
A major concern was the fact that the pupils had to cross the main Swedru-Oda highway on a daily basis to attend classes.
Assembly’s timely support
At the sod-cutting ceremony, Mrs Marigold Assan said her outfit realised the danger the old block posed to the pupils, hence, the decision to build a new classroom block to solve the accommodation problem in the school.
She expressed the hope that when completed, the new classroom block would provide a conducive learning environment to the pupils who currently studied in an environment that negatively affected teaching and learning.
She thanked the Minister responsible for Tertiary Education, Professor Kwesi Yankah, for playing an instrumental role towards the initiation of the project.
She charged the contractor to ensure that work was executed on schedule to bring relief to the pupils.
Education Director
The Agona West Municipal Director of Education, Mrs Elizabeth Helen Essel, expressed gratitude to the government for the timely support since the conditions in the school was not fit for academic work.
She expressed optimism that the new classroom would improve teaching and learning in the school and further called on authorities of the school not to admit more pupils to create overcrowding in the classrooms.
Mr Nii Okai, the contractor, pledged to complete the project by the stipulated period