Teacher who walks 42km to class rewarded with standing fan

A teacher who walks 42 kilometres to class to teach every day has been rewarded with a standing fan as a mark of appreciation by the authorities at the Tolon District Assembly during Tuesday’s Independence Day Celebration.

The award was presented by the district director of education Reverend Georgina Anaaba Norga who asked the teacher to continue with the good work.

Awudu Kombian had been serving as the only teacher for the Warvi D/A primary school for several academic periods.

Some other teachers also received similar awards, including a huge thermo food flask, for their exceptional roles in promoting rural education in the area.

A citation was publicly read praising their commitment and “well dedicated service” despite daunting challenges faced by rural teachers.

Until three teachers were recently posted to the Warvi primary school in one of Tolon’s hard to reach deprived inlands, Mr. Kombian doubled as a headmaster and teacher.

The school has a population of about 74 with three classrooms, and he taught them all alone for more than a year.

He travelled 42kms to school to prepare the pupils for lessons. As a headmaster, he performed other tasks and so the school was always closed down whenever he fell ill or travelled.

With the three classrooms, Kombian sometimes merged all the pupils in a classroom to teach them, and other times, he would choose a class and release the others onto the fields to play until he was done and shepherded another inside.

“It’s very challenging” he said, but added “as a professional you have to always do your best to see what you can do in the midst of the challenges. Every day I have to travel about 42kms to go and teach, because it’s a very deprived community, and places like that you don’t have accommodation so even if you are willing to even stay there, there is no accommodation for you”.



Receiving the award at the event ground, Mr. Kombian said he was happy for the recognition of his works and pleaded with authorities to extend the gesture to several other teachers doing wonderful job, trying to bring education to children living in rural communities across the country.

“The award itself…the prize itself is not something that I will place much emphasis on but the gesture. The gesture of recognizing what I have done is what gladdens my heart”

“But we also expect that as we are trying, you will have to do whatever to be able to support us to be able to do the work well. So, I will say I’m happy that recognition has been given for the effort that I’ve been putting, so it’s quite refreshing to know that someone is looking at you and what you are doing; that alone is satisfying,” Kombian said.

In all, 22 basic schools including a senior high school in the district participated in the march which was supervised by the District Chief Executive, Education Director, Police Commander and Chiefs in the area.

The three best schools, including Tolon Model Primary School and Nyankpala Islamic School who won best schools respectively, were awarded with footballs and a local trophy.