The Headmaster of Abutia Senior High Technical School, Mr. A.Y Fiashide has called on government not to discriminate against second cycle institutions in the distribution of logistics and infrastructural support to schools but ensure that resources to educational institutions are evenly distributed irrespective of where a school is located.
Mr. Fiashide said some schools in the country pride themselves high thereby attracting government attention in the provision of school buses, classroom blocks, and dormitories than others.
To buttress his point the Headmaster pointed out that since the establishment of the Abutia Senior High Technical School in 1991 by the community and absorbed by the government the following year as a day school, the single four unit classroom block provided by the community was the only block that is being used as classroom block, administration, library and store rooms.
Speaking to newsmen at the 2nd speech and prize giving and Home coming Day of the school at Abutia-Teti, Mr. Fiashide noted that as a result of lack of infrastructure, classes are being held under trees, a development that affect teaching and learning because during the rainy season, such classes are always suspended.
Mr. Fiashide commended the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) of the school for providing the school with additional two classroom blocks to befit the now boarding status. He regretted that the government had absorbed the school officially on paper but has neglected it in the provision of the needed facilities.
"It is with a heavy heart that I say this, most students and teachers sent to the school refused to report because the facilities we have are nothing to write home about. The days of holding classes under trees while teachers using shades of trees as staff common room as is done here should not be allowed to happen," he said.
He, therefore, called on relevant stakeholders including government to help provide the needed infrastructure for less endowed schools like the Abutia Senior High Technical School to enhance teaching and learning because both deprived and well-endowed ones write the same examination set by the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC).
Mr. Fiashide also expressed concern over lack of accommodation for teachers in the school. According to him all the 84 staff live in rented accommodations outside the school, a development which is affecting discipline as no teacher monitor student activities after school hours.
The Board Chairman of the School, Mr. Emmanuel Appiah, appealed to government to provide phone booths in the school to facilitate communication of students and their parents noting that if this was done it would help students to obey the rule of non-possession and usage of mobile phones in school.
Mr. Appiah appealed to the Abutia community to partner with the school by making available accommodation for teachers to serve as their contribution to the development of the school, which he noted would not only be complementary but would as well address the accommodation challenges facing the school.
The Volta Regional Director of Education, Mr. Emmanuel Keteku noted that in spite of the infrastructure challenges confronting the school, it still performed creditably in academics and urged them not to relent in their efforts to provide the best for the students out of the situation in which they found themselves.
Mr. Keteku asked the school authorities to apply to the right source to enable them attract the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) assistance to address some of the infrastructure challenges confronting the school.
He urged students to take advantage of the opportunity available to them and study hard so as to justify the investment their parents and government were making in them.
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