The chiefs and people of Ntankro, a farming community in the Kintampo South District, Bono East Region, have appealed to government and other stakeholders to rescue them from the challenge of inadequate educational infrastructure in the area.
The residents lamented as a matter of urgency, they needed particularly classroom blocks for pupils and Junior High School students because the challenge has persisted for decades now in the community.
Consequently, the school children have been sitting under trees for teaching and learning, which is not conducive environment and a great disincentive for academic progress.
Mr. Amos Nyarko, the Assembly Member for the area, and Mr. Seth Okyere, the Head Teacher of the local District Assembly (D/A) Primary School, jointly made the appeal in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) on behalf of the people on Monday at Ntankro.
According to them classes were held under trees, leaving the school children at the mercy of the scorching sunshine, sand and dust-laden wind and sometimes unexpected rainfalls.
The school children again suffered from noise pollution as they were distracted by unbearable noise from passer by and vehicles, because the trees serving as shelter for them were located on the roadside, Mr. Okyere bemoaned.
He lamented though successive governments had respectively strived to eradicate “this canker” (schools under trees) through the provision of schools in various parts of the country, “the situation with our school still worsens with no attention and hope of intervention from anywhere”.
The challenge continued to negatively affect concentration for teaching and learning because whenever a vehicle passed, a couple of pupils shifted their attention to look at it, instead of focusing on what was being taught, Mr. Okyere stated.
Additionally, he stressed the hassle the children went through daily for moving tables and chairs in and out for classes had been very challenging.
On his part Mr. Nyarko expressed worry that the D/A Primary School was the only one in the community with a population of more than 1,800 but the situation had been discouraging school going children from attending school.