Authorities of Chiana Senior High School in the Upper East Region, has appealed to government to as a matter of urgency to release the two-term feeding grants arrears to second cycle schools in the region, to enable them run the schools since the delay is crippling effective management of schools.
The Headmistress of Chiana Senior High School, Mrs. Margaret Bobi, who was speaking at the school’s 25th Anniversary celebration on the theme “Promoting quality secondary education in the 21st century, the role of stakeholders” said, the delay in releasing feeding grants for secondary schools in the region, is making the running of the school difficult as suppliers are unwilling to supply them foodstuff.
“The grant for the past two terms have not been paid. As at now; we don’t have soap in our stores because suppliers are not willing to supply us on credit so what do we do?. We plead with the Ghana Education Service to as a matter of urgency impress upon the government to release funds to enable us settle our indebtedness to our suppliers.”
Mrs. Bobi added that, the school with a population of 1,434, has only 52 teaching staff, 1 typist, 38 non-teaching staff, and woefully inadequate teachers for General science, English, History and Home economics, thus affecting effective teaching and learning.
She called on government to lift the ban on recruitment to enable them recruit more teaching and non-teaching staff.
Abandoned projects affecting Teaching and Learning
Mrs. Bobi said after 25 years of existence, the Chiana Senior High School is faced with infrastructure challenges. The school doesn’t have an an assembly and dining hall, compelling students to have their gatherings and dining in the open.
The congestion at the Boys dormitory, has compelled management of the school to convert six classrooms into accommodation for the boys, compounding the problem of classrooms for students.
She appealed to the regional coordinating council to abrogate the contract of the contractor working on the boys dormitory project for abandoning the project for several years, and re-award it to a serious contractor to salvage the accommodation situation for the boys.
Mrs. Bobi also impressed on contractors working on the girls’ dormitory, administration block and dining hall projects that have stalled for some time now, to complete the projects in order to improve teaching and learning.
As a result of inadequate dormitories, metal beds for the school are left at the mercy of the sun, while some students ‘chop boxes’ are packed along the corridor of their dormitories.
Mrs. Bobi thus appealed to government and the contractors working on the projects to urgently complete them.
–
By: Frederick Awuni/citifmonline.com/Ghana
