Management of the Keta Business College (KETABUSCO) has converted classrooms into sleeping places for students to avoid overcrowding in dormitories.
This was necessary to accommodate the increasingly large number of students placed in the School every year as borders following the inception of the government’s flagship Free Senior High School programme.
A visit by the Ghana News Agency (GNA) to Ketabusco on Wednesday showed two of a four-classroom block (each half partitioned by plywood) took on the task of providing shelter to the girls and their belongings.
The classrooms-turned-dormitories, however, could not provide sanitary services to students, who then had to walk to the main girls’ boarding house to take their bath, among others before returning to their dwelling.
Ms Lucky Senam Nutsugah, First Deputy School Prefect, who is one of the student leaders on campus, told the GNA that the improvised dormitories would not have helped matters had final year students returned on the planned resumption date.
“Thank God our colleagues who returned to school yesterday were redirected by the government to go back home. If not, by now, we’ll be pairing in our beds.”
While the School managed to address the issue of sleeping places for the girl boarders, it ended up creating another for students (boarding and day, girls and boys)-a reduction in the already inadequate classrooms, thus impacting negatively on teaching and learning in the school.
A teacher in the school, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said when it came to elective subjects, teachers clashed for classrooms to teach in, others used almost the entire lesson period in search of classrooms, while others sat under trees with no marker boards to write on.
While the school grappled with these challenges, two newly constructed one-storey dormitory blocks with ancillary facilities started during the erstwhile Mahama administration remained under lock and key.
Mr Victor Kwaku Kovey, Keta Municipal Director of Education, said the GETFUND project was almost ready and that efforts were in progress for electricity supply to be extended to the building for the students to occupy.
Mr Godwin Edudzi Effah, Municipal Chief Executive of Keta, when contacted assured of the Assembly’s resolve to immediately visit the school and take urgent measures for the students to move into the new building at the earliest to allow for effective teaching and learning in the school.
Mr Etse Godstime Seake-Kwawu, Headmaster of KETABUSCO, was not available for an interview.