Floods threatening Oyoko Roman Catholic School

Oyoko Roman Catholic School, near Koforidua is being threatened by floods.

Any time the clouds gather, school has to close for the teachers and pupils to quickly rush out of their classrooms and the school compound to safety else they risk being caught up in floods.

If the rains start without the clouds gathering, any delay could end up with the flooding of the classrooms and the pupils and their teachers would have to perch on their tables until the end of the rains to find a way of wading through the floods.

On June 25, this year, after such rains, the Ghana Fire Service had to be called in to save the trapped teachers and their pupils from their flooded classrooms.

School had to be suspended for three days for the flood waters to subside on the school compound and the classrooms washed to clean the mad left behind by the flood waters for classes to start again.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), Mrs Esther Kponor, the Assistant Headmistress of the school disclosed that, the problem has been persistent over the past four years making teaching and learning in the school difficult.

She said, any time the school is flooded, books and other learning materials are destroyed and due to the challenge facing the school, many parents are withdrawing their children from the school and enrollment had gone down drastically.

Mrs Kponor said, effective teaching and learning goes on in the school only during the harmatan season and that is seriously affecting the performance of the pupils.

She disclosed that, currently, the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) is helping the school to construct a four classroom block, an office and a store for the kindergarten and the Nursery kids at a more safer grounds where they would not be threatened by the floods.

Mrs Kponor called for the relocation of the school to avoid the floods which is life threatening.

She made an appeal to the New Juaben Municipal Assembly, Eastern Regional Education Directorate, the Catholic Education Unit, Chiefs and other well-meaning people in the community to assist the school because the level and frequency of the floods is serious and calls for the concern of all stakeholders.

The School currently runs two streams, A and B and has a student’s population of 500.