Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, former Minister of Finance under the erstwhile NDC government of President John Evans Atta Mills, has intervened to support the renovation of a dilapidated basic school in the Anloga district of the Volta region in line with his Ghanaian dream of seeing every child in Ghana go to school under the best learning and teaching conditions.
His intervention comes through the support of the Duffuor Foundation, a charity he founded, in partnering with the Livingstone Foundation as part of a private partnership to renovate the dilapidated school in fulfillment of their shared belief in supporting children’s education in the basic level.
The business mogul went on a road trip to the school last Friday where he expressed shock at the deplorable state of the school’s facilities and pledged to immediately contribute to give the school a face-lift to enhance teaching and learning.
The dilapidated Trekume basic school which serves about seven different communities including Tregui, Trekume, Dosukope, Blemezado, Azanu among others, hasn’t been renovated since its establishment more than 30 years ago.
The school has a growing population of about 350 pupils but with the existing
deplorable structures, the students now share the compound with wild birds and other rodents because parts of the floors and walls have developed deep cracks and the partly ripped off windows and roofs cannot allow teaching and learning during the rains.
Dr. Duffuor’s timely intervention came in response to appeals from Headmaster of the school, Mr. Isaac Boni who rang the alarm bells that the school’s infrastructural situation is a looming disaster even as it negatively affects the current academic performance of the pupils.
“We are not happy with what we have seen here. Our children should have a more decent environment to stay in and learn and I think we can change this situation – it must be done” Dr. Duffuor told the community at a groundbreaking ceremony to start renovations and repair work on the school.
The former governor of the bank of Ghana said the initiative falls in line with his Ghanaian Dream vision which aims at giving equal opportunities to the Ghanaian people in every aspect of our lives including the right to quality education.
“We are reminding ourselves that the situation we have seen today is deplorable and something must be done about it. The Ghanaian Dream means that everyone must be given equal opportunities; we have children staying in air-conditioned classrooms somewhere in Ghana here and we have our children in dilapidated classrooms here (Trekume basic school) but they will be taking the same exams. How will these children here achieve the same results as those in the nice environments,” Dr. Duffour questioned rhetorically.
Repair work on the 6-unit primary classroom block, another 3-unit JHS block will be completed within one year from now. In addition to the repair works, new ancillary facilities will also be added to the school to make it a state of the art facility.
Dr. Kwabena Duffuor, a leading member of the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), rumored to be lacing his boot for the NDC 2024 flag bearer contest, also recently came up with another private initiative dubbed the “Ahoto business project” which is meant to financially empower and bring relief to NDC party executives in all 275 constituencies across the country as part of his bigger vision of a “Ghanaian Dream”.
