The state of affairs inside one of Ghana’s most prestigious Second Cycle Institutions, Prempeh College, is now nothing to write home about as the school is overwhelmed with crowding as a result of the Free Senior High School policy.
According to verified reports credit to Joy News, the school has converted an uncompleted structure into a classroom housing about 10 combined classes in all made up of an average of about 50 students apiece.
The three-storey structure started under the administration of Prempeh College old student John Agyekum Kufour. The project has since stalled.
The Headmaster of the college, Aaron Attuah Gyau lamented that should the contractor even come back to the site, the school will have a major problem having alternative space for the students currently studying in the uncompleted building.
In addition, the school Library which is under renovation has also been abandoned by the Ghana Library Board. The school has therefore been without a library for the past three years.
“We don’t have facilities here, our students are still learning in an uncompleted, unroofed structure, and I have complained,” the headmaster said.
“It is even dangerous because we don’t have the bannisters and railings to prevent students from falling over, and if the contractor were to have returned to the site now, we wouldn’t know where to take students of about 10 classrooms and more,” he added.
School history
Prempeh College is an all-boys boarding school in a suburb of Kumasi (the Ashanti regional capital), Ashanti, founded in 1949 by Asantehene Sir Osei Tutu Agyeman Prempeh II.
Prempeh College was originally meant to cater to the educational needs of Kumasi Metropolis and Ashanti. It is the first all-boys secondary school in Ashanti.
Prempeh College is a reputed Grade A school with other secondary schools including Mfantsipim School, Wesley Girls’ High School and Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School.
The school is modelled on Eton College in England. It won the National Science and Maths Quiz twice, in 1994 (the first school to win the maiden edition) and 1996.
Prempeh College won the 2015 edition of the National Science and Maths Quiz after beating Adisadel College and University Practice SHS in the final making them 3-time champions of the competition, making it the second school in Ghana to clinch a trophy for keeps.
The college also won the National Robotics Inspired Science Education Challenge in 2014 and Is the Only School from Ashanti Region to win the competition, the college is the only high school from the Ashanti region to have won the National Debate Championship in 2004.
The school topped matriculation at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in 2012, with 296 students from the college admitted, and is currently the top school in Kumasi Metropolis and Ashanti and Ghana.
Prempeh College is an archrival to Opoku Ware School and is the fiercest rival among senior high schools in Ghana.
Prempeh is the academic home of more than 2,000 young men, of whom approximately 90% are in boarding school.