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Wa, Ghana – A Deputy Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in charge of Supervision in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region, Huudu Alkilah Kunnatey, has disclosed that the district has recorded high enrolment levels in recent times, but the lack of infrastructure is compounding the situation.
According to him, the increase in enrolment levels which was a significant achievement, came on the back of the establishment of new schools in communities where pupils used to walk several miles to access formal education elsewhere.
“Metti and Bullituo are among the beneficiary communities to have gotten new schools in the district”, Mr. Kunnatey told the press in an interview during Ghana’s 61st Independence Day Anniversary celebration in the district.
Mr. Kunnatey said lack of classroom infrastructure in some schools in the district especially Yelleyiri and others was making it difficult to admit all children of schooling age in the limited spaces available in those schools.
He also bemoaned the incidence of school dropout in the district but put the blame squarely on parents who preferred using their children as labour in farming and other family business.
“There are times children are made to go to farms during contact hours whilst others are sent to funerals where they spend days without recourse to the fact that they are supposed to attend classes”.
Mr Kunnatey also raised issues about parents and guardians not being unconcerned about their children using mobile phones for unproductive activities such as watching pornographic content.
He therefore noted that the traditional leaders and parents had a major role to play in order to fight the menace of school dropout.
The GES Deputy Director in the district also lamented the unethical behaviour of some teachers in the discharge of their duties.
He indicated that lateness and absenteeism among teachers were a major challenge to education in the Wa West District.
He further added that the School Management Committees (SMCs) and the Parent and Teacher Associations (PTA) were not free exonerated from the blame.
According to Mr Kunnatey, these bodies most often attempted to solve educational issues at the community level instead of reporting them to the District Directorate of Education to find lasting solutions for the problems.
With these challenges, the Director in charge of Supervision shared some initiatives that were being implemented to improve performance in the district citing the efforts of UNICEF in supporting the Education Directorate to organize a number of sensitization programs across the district.
Another solution to the problems, according to him, was the introduction of the Mobile School Report Card (MSRC) which record the attendance of teachers to school on a mobile device. “The device is closely monitored by the circuit supervisors in order to reduce teacher absenteeism and lateness to school”, he pointed out.
Furthermore, there was also the implementation of what was called the “Out of Instructional Period School programme”, he said, adding that “it is a programme that allows children of schooling age who are not in the normal school system to be educated, and added to the mainstream school after nine months of Instruction through the use of the mother tongue”.
The District Assembly on their part have introduced an award scheme to honour the best BECE candidates in the district as was stated by the District Chief Executive (DCE), Edward Sabo Laabiir in his Independence Day speech.
The DCE also disclosed that some school projects for the Wa West were being advertised for bidding, adding that the Assembly would work hard to get contractors back to site to complete abandoned projects.
By Savannahnewsonline.com
