Education directors as well as teachers in the Builsa South District of the Upper East Region have been left bewildered as they have received directives to buy stationery including chalk from offices of the Ghana Education Service (GES), a situation which seemed out of normal.
According to them, most of the materials as clearly inscribed on some of their packages are ‘Strictly Not for Sale’.
They are, therefore, smelling foul play.
“I am a teacher in Builsa South and I don’t know what is happening,” a teacher told TV3 on anonymity.
Issues of stationery especially chalk have sparked public debate recently after a headmistress at a primary school in Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region pleaded with Second Lady Matilda Amissah-Arthur, as a representative of government, to make those materials available.
But in what appears as an outburst, the wife of the Vice President - who was at the school to present desktop computers - rebuked the headmistress for crying out loud, saying provision of chalk and other basic stationery is the responsibility of alumni and Parent-Teacher Associations.
Though Mrs Amissah-Arthur has since apologized for her comments, the headmistress, Juliet Oppong, is under investigation by the district directorate of the GES over her requests.
She has also been slammed by the Minister of Education, Professor Jane Naana Opoku Agyemang.
If what our sources in Builsa South are telling us is anything to go by, then the GES must be blamed for all these.
A letter sighted by TV3 puts two cartons of chalk at GHc100 each for both the primary and junior high school sections.
Books such as ‘Easy Steps to Drawing’ for primary pupils and ‘Cock Crow’ for jhs pupils are to be bought from the schools' grants.
