Well done but more work ahead

The inauguration of 80 new educational facilities in about 60 municipalities and districts across the country last Thursday by the government deserves mention.

The infrastructure, which range from two-unit Kindergarten blocks to three; and 18-unit classroom blocks for basic and second cycle schools, as well as two E-Blocks completed from the previous administration, are classrooms, laboratories, dormitories, dining halls, kitchens, education offices and ancillary facilities.

The projects, which are part of efforts by the government to transform the delivery of education in the country, should be welcome news, particularly in the senior high schools, where inadequate infrastructure remains a challenge as more junior high school leavers seek secondary education.

The lack of adequate classrooms, dormitories and dining halls, among others, becomes even more pronounced with the introduction of the free senior high school, which gave birth to the double track system.

So, since 2017, a lot of work has been done in the provision of classrooms, dormitories, science, and information and communications technology (ICT) laboratories; accommodation facilities for teachers, among others.

The issue of the lack of infrastructure, especially classrooms, at the basic level equally remains a major challenge in the rural areas where some pupils still study under trees or in deplorable structures.

Indeed, the infrastructural challenges pre-date our independence era, when the first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, rolled out the Education Act 1961(Act 87), which made six years of primary school followed by four years of middle school fee-free and compulsory.

That move led to the children being divided into morning and afternoon sessions, popularly called the shift system, because the children outnumbered the classrooms available at the time.

The shift system continued until the early parts of the year 2000, when efforts were made to phase it out, which also brought into being the classrooms under trees until the 2010s when the government made it a policy to eliminate schools under trees.

Obviously, therefore, it is the expectation of the public that the facilities inaugurated would be used to ease the infrastructural challenges in the schools they are located.

At the inauguration ceremony, President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo said it was the vision of his government that every child in Ghana had access to an environment that inspired learning and ambition.

Indeed, the Daily Graphic is of the conviction that education is a right and not a privilege and as stated by President Akufo-Addo, irrespective of the situation of a child, that child should not be denied the environment that inspired learning and ambition.

It is a fact most children dropped out of school because of their school environment. In some schools, teaching and learning end whenever the clouds gather, because either their classrooms are not safe or classes are held under trees.

So, it is heartwarming that the projects that had been inaugurated covered all levels of pre-tertiary education across the country.

It is the expectation of the Daily Graphic that these projects would serve as incentive to entice learners not just to go to school, but to remain in school.

Some of the projects are completely new, while others have been renovated to give them a facelift as is the case of Saint Barnabas Anglican School, where the President did the symbolic simultaneous inauguration ceremony.

According to the President, for over six decades, St Barnabas Anglican School which stands in the heart of Accra as a beacon of education, suffered from neglect.

The classrooms before their transformation had broken windows, leaky roofs and learning spaces unfit for children.

While commending the government for this effort, we wish to remind the government that the case at St Barnabas Anglican School is not an isolated one but a reflection of the situation countrywide, especially with public basic schools.

The Daily Graphic urges the government through the Ghana Education Service to audit the structures of public basic schools across the country in order to rehabilitate them to make them suitable for learning.

The pupils in all schools also deserve to learn in equally congenial environments that facilitate better learning outcomes.

We expect then, that the rehabilitation of basic schools should not end with the inauguration of these 80, which are not only basic schools but those at the entire pre-tertiary education level.

The paper looks forward to the day when schoolchildren are not only in refurbished rehabilitated structures but that every school-age child everywhere in the country is in a decent classroom.