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85 percent of basic schools in the Mampong Municipality of the Ashanti Region lack decent toilet and urinary facilities.
This came to light after the regional branch of NAGRAT intervened to bring relief to students and teachers of the Nana Adjei Brimpong primary school by providing a washroom for the school.
Headmistress of the school which has about 200 students and staff Monica Ayiwanka lamented about how students and teachers had to go to obscure corners to attend to nature’s call.
Speaking to Ultimate FM’s Ivan Heathcote Fumador she said “where teachers come to school and have to be moving from the back of one house to the other to urinate and the pupils just stand anywhere and urinate. So you see at a time the compound started to produce some scent we couldn’t bear.”
Touching on how NAGRAT was able to build and handed over a urinal with separate compartments for females and males for students and teachers, Ashanti regional chairman for the association Francis Owusu revealed that it cost averagely GhC 6,000 to execute.
“We want our members to note that as we fight for their welfare if there’s something within our means to also do it in a small way, we also not shy away from it. We always want to come down to help them because we saw that they needed this place so they can work and we’ve come to do it,” he said.
Municipal Education Director for the area, Gabriel Antwi noted that a lot of the schools in the area do not have urinal and toilets.”
He said, “the last time at assembly meeting I informed them that 85% of our schools do not have toilet facilities.”
“We send children to school to imbibe in them some values which sanitation is one of them. And so if the child goes to school and do not have a place to go to toilet and does it in the bush, meaning that is what the child is learning and so when he comes home that is what is going to happen. And so yes, we need these facilities in our schools,” he lamented.
