Naarango community in dire need of a classroom block

The Naarango community in the Pusiga District of the Upper East Region is in dire need of a six-unit classroom block as the only three-unit classroom structure built several years ago is in a deplorable state.

The structure, built with bricks, has broken doors without windows, furniture and has cracks all over the building.

Mr Jeremiah Agbango, the President of the Zuabuliga Young Eagles Movement (ZUYEM), a youth group in the Zuabuliga Electoral area, in an interview with the Ghana News Agency at Naarango, expressed worry that if school resumed, academic activities would be a challenge to pupils in the community.

According to him, the only important thing the government ever did for the community was the three-unit brick classroom which had outlived its usefulness.

He said the population of school-going children in the community had over the years increased, and the current dilapidated school structure could not contain the children.

“We need a school in this community because education is the only way we can be linked to the rest of the world.”

Apart from the school block which was one of the major educational challenges in the area, the Youth President said: “Our community lacks electricity, all surrounding communities in the Zuabuliga Electoral area have electricity except the Naarango community, we don’t even have a single electricity pole.”

Mr Agbango said in the era of COVID-19 where students learnt via the internet and the media, the community had no electricity for children in the area to benefit from classes organised by some media outlets.

“Our BECE candidates are only going to present themselves at the examination centre, but we don’t know what the outcome of the results will be.”

He recalled that in 2014, community members at Zuugu, also in the Zuabuliga Electoral area, through their initiative built a school and the government posted teachers to the school under the Youth Employment Agency.

He said due to lack of infrastructure and motivation for the teachers, they left the community and other teachers had also refused postings to the area.

“There is a river between the Zuugu community and the main Zuabuliga community which is the Electoral area capital, but in this rainy season, residents, especially school children are not able to cross to school.

Just last month, we lost a very brilliant girl in the river, she was trying to cross to school but died in the river,” the ZUYEM President said.

Mr Agbango said if nothing was done to solve the educational challenges in the communities, many school children might drown while trying to cross to school in other communities.