By: Benjamin Owusu | Voltaonlinegh |
A newly constructed six-unit classroom block with teachers’ quarters and other auxiliary structures at Nabu D/A Basic School in the Nkwanta North District of the Oti Region has been abandoned for over a year after completion.
A visit to the school by the reporter revealed that the classroom building was among eight other projects constructed under the Social Investment Fund (SIF) to improve on education and health care in the area.
While the 6-unit classroom block with its auxiliary structures remains under lock and wastes away, the teachers and pupils of the school are forced to use the only dilapidated structure as their classrooms.
A teacher in the school, Jagri Unajah Sani said the school had no desk and other education materials to enhance teaching and learning, adding, pupils had to sit on stones and wood logs to learn.
Mr. Sani lamented the school usually shut down any time it threatened to rain, thus, impacting negatively on academics works in the school
According to him, there were high hopes the problem of classroom infrastructure would be addressed upon completion of the classroom block yet that remained to be seen as the completed project had not be commissioned to serve the purpose for its construction.
He called on authorities to as matter of urgency commission the building to offer a conducive environment for teaching and learning to take place.
Head teacher of the school, Paul Iddrisu also decried the situation and called on the assembly to commission the school for them to improve class attendance.
Speaking in an interview, pupils of the school appealed to the district assembly to do their best to ensure the building was put into immediate use to enable them have access to quality education for a better future.
Meanwhile, there were complaints from residents of Azua, another community in the Nkwanta North District of failure by the authorities to commission a health centre constructed to serve the people and pleaded for swift measures to get the place operational to improve health care delivery in the area.
In his reaction, the District Chief Executive (DCE) for the area, Jackson Kwame Jakayi explained, the projects had not been commissioned because the assembly could not pay monies it owed SIF contractors as a result of debts inherited from the previous administration which the current one had to clear.
Mr. Jakayi however, assured that the assembly was in talks with the contractors to allow for the projects to be commissioned and put to use to serve the purposes for which they were initiated while it took steps to clear the outstanding debts owed them.
Source: www.voltaonlinegh.com
