Pupils study under trees; use stones as furniture

Some basic schools are still left to study under trees as a result of the lack of proper structures, despite claims by successive governments that the issue of “schools under trees” is a thing of the past.

Pupils of the African Faith Basic School in Yawhima in the Brong Ahafo Region are left to study under trees with no furniture to sit on, TV3 has gathered.

The African Faith Basic School is the only school in the community. Its total population is 253.

The school can only boast of a three-unit classroom block, which accommodates primaries 4, 5 and 6 pupils leaving the remaining students to study under trees.

Pupils constantly carry stones, which is their source of furniture, in search of a shade under which to study.

This situation leaves the pupils under the mercy of the weather, with teaching and learning activities coming to a halt whenever it threatens to rain.

On days that the sun is too hot to be contained by the trees that serve as a shade to the pupils, classes end abruptly.

“After 12:00pm, we cannot even sit here anymore, so the only thing is that we shift somewhere else or find a way to go home because there is no shade for us to sit,” a female teacher lamented to TV3’s Larry Paa Kwesi Moses.

The lack of structures at the school has led to low enrollment since most of the pupils complain of discomfort.

“We enroll them but within some shortest possible time, they run away because of the nature of the environment; because they have realised that some are sitting somewhere comfortably learning and they are here under trees.”