The erratic supply of potable water at Mawuli School, a foremost second cycle institution in Ho in the Volta region, has reached an alarming stage, as students struggle in search of the basic commodity to run their daily chores.
The situation, which has persisted in the past four weeks, according to sources, is making life unbearable for the over 3000 students, who now depend on unwholesome water from a well and dugouts in the school.
“We have to struggle to get water to bath each day. We queue from 3am just to fetch muddy water which contains frogs and this is even giving us skin infections,” a frustrated student told Starr News.
Food preparation at the school’s kitchen has also been affected by the water situation, resulting in some kind of food rationing among the students, Starr News has gathered.
Academic work in the school is gravely affected, as classes are truncated in some cases to get the male students to go and fetch water to the kitchen for the preparation of their meals.
A final year student narrated that, “we’ll be in class and they will call the boys to go and fetch water for the kitchen that means, teaching and learning will stop. “Even with the meal, we don’t get enough because of the water situation. Sometimes, they minimize the food quantum for the form ones at lunch and during supper that of the form threes is also reduced.”
Meanwhile, school authorities are blaming the problem on a cut in supply by the Ghana Water Company due to high indebtedness of the school to the utility provider.
They have therefore resorted to sending defaulting students home to enable them raise funds to defray part of their indebtedness to the utility providers.