74 schools under trees in Wa West

About 74 basic schools in the Wa West District of the Upper West Region operate under trees and dilapidated structures hampering teaching and learning in the area.

Latest rankings in the performance of Basic Schools in the Upper West Region revealed that the district is lagging behind in terms of its performance at the Basic School Certificate Examination (BECE).

In view of the non availability of good structures, pupils of most of the basic schools in the area are sometimes forced to move from under the trees into church buildings and other uninhabitable structures they come across just to learn.

Some Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) manage to construct a number of swish buildings for affected communities but a recent rainstorm has pulled down most of them.

When DAILY GUIDE visited the district, pupils of Darguo-Teng Kindergarten, Primary and Junior High schools, were seen studying under very deplorable conditions with some of them spotted sitting on stones under trees.

The Wa West District Chief Executive Adamu Dasana, said there are a number of interventions to support the removal of all schools under trees in the District but encouraged communities to support government in this regard.

According to him, the number of school structures under trees has a toll on teaching and learning in the district hence the need for collaboration with various stakeholders in dealing with the situation head-on to ensure that teaching and learning is done in a conducive environment.

The deplorable school structures in the area, he observed, had resulted in a high drop-out rate as the swish buildings also expose the school children to danger reiterating the need for drastic measures to be taken to save the situation.

He hinted that a proposal had been made to the central government and the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) to help put up a number of classrooms in the district to ameliorate the suffering of pupils and teachers.

The DCE was optimistic that by the close of the year, a number of planned governmental interventions would help yield results and schools under trees would be a thing of the past in the district.