Bunkpurugu schools chalk success in BECE performance

The Bunkpurugu-Yunyoo District has achieved tremendous performance in the recent Basic Education Certificates Examination (BECE) moving from 15 per cent success in 2008 to 68 percent in 2012.

The district with 147 schools and few trained teachers is now the second best district in the Northern Region for BECE.

It is also ranked 33rd position nationwide making it one of the best districts in the country since many products from the area had won national awards.

Mr. Justine Bayela Dakorah, District Director of Education for the Bunkpurugu/Yunyoo, who disclosed this at teachers and staff awards ceremony on Tuesday at Bunkpurugu, said the district had achieved the fate through hard work, determination, good supervision and monitoring.

The award ceremony saw several teachers and staff of the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the area receiving awards for their hard work and dedication, which had enabled the students to improve on their performance.

It was also meant to urge them to continue to deliver their best to the students.

Mr. Dakorah said under his leadership as the GES Director, teachers were sensitized on the need to give out their best realizing that the district was a deprived one with few trained teachers, stressing that “Where necessary, sanctions and refusal of salaries are used to discipline teachers who go contrary to their duties”.

He, however, complained that the district was faced with numerous problems confronting teaching and learning and mentioned absent of textbooks, teaching and learning materials and fewer classrooms as some of the problems.

Mr. Dakorah said because of the inadequate infrastructure, classrooms were congested, adding “The GETFund has never constructed any school block in the district since it was carved…I therefore appeal to the institutions concern to come to our aid”.

Mr. Gariba Bello, Headmaster of the Salimbouku Junior High School observed that even though the school came out as one of the best in the area, the classroom population was about 120 students per class, noting that one of the classrooms even had 134 pupils.

He said the situation was making teaching difficult and stressful for teachers. He complained that since the inception of the JHS system in 2007, “We have never seen a textbook on Religious and Moral Education (RME) yet students are made to write it at their final exams”, he said.

Mr. Duut Saaganma Gado, Headmaster of the DA JHS, also complained of non-availability of school syllabus and text books in mathematics, science and RME and urged the government to provide the required educational materials and infrastructure to enhance academic work.

He said a total of 32 schools’ roofs in the district were ripped-off by a rainstorm in April this ear and since then, students had been sitting under the dilapidated structure at the mercy of the weather.

Mr. Gado appealed to the District Assembly, non-governmental organizations to come to their aid.