From afar, the Teong Primary school located in the Timpane District of the Upper East region does not look like a school. It’s just a mud house in a very deplorable state.
But that’s not the worst situation. Just when you get close to the school, the first thing you see is children sitting on the ground under a tree while teaching is ongoing.
And when it is time for the children to write, they use the floor as their books; they spread the soil to have a fine surface and then with a piece of stone, they write their alphabets.
No child deserves this form of education. It defeats the global agenda on the Sustainable Development Goal 4 which seeks to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030.
The Teong Primary school has just four classrooms for a population of 240 pupils from class one to six hence classes have to be combined. Pupils in the upper classes also sit on the floor to study due to lack of furniture.
The school was set up by the community members 15 years ago. Head teacher of the school says although the Ghana Education Service absorbed the school in 2010, it is yet to respond to their plight.
Chairman of the Parents and Teachers Association of the school is also frustrated about the situation.
With the kind of education these children in Teong are subjected to in this 21st century, one can picture what their future will look like if urgent steps are not taken to tackle the teething challenges facing Education in rural Ghana.
Source: Nabil Ahmed Rufai,GHOne News
