GARE-GBANE APPEALS FOR ADDITIONAL SCHOOL BLOCK (PAGE 40, APRIL 12, 2010)

THE residents of Gare-Gbane in the Talensi-Nabdam District in the Upper East Region have appealed to the government to provide them with an additional school block since the current facility cannot contain the large number of pupils.
They said the only primary school in the community had a total enrolment of 836 pupils, comprising 463 males and 373 females.
Established in 1998 by individual philanthropists, the six-unit classroom block has not seen any expansion and with the current population growth, each classroom contains not less than 100 children.
The people made the appeal when the Deputy Regional Minister, Mrs Lucy Awuni, distributed exercise books and school uniforms to them in fulfilment of the government’s promise to invest in people and education.
Presenting the items, Mrs Awuni said the government was committed to investing in the youth because they were the future leaders of the country.
She commended the parents and the chief of the area, Naab Pobaataba Nabil, for ensuring that every child above the age of six was enrolled in school.
The deputy regional minister, however, entreated parents not to shirk their responsibility but rather provide for the needs of their children.
The Talensi-Nabdam District Chief Executive, Mrs Vivian Anafo, said the district had so far received a total of 26,869 exercise books out of the 122,350 allocated to the district, while 1,685 school uniforms had also been received.
She, however, bemoaned the lack of school buildings in the district as a result of which most of the pupils attended classes under trees while the few classroom blocks in the district were overcrowded, leading to congestion, with some pupils lying on the bare floor for lessons.
The District Director of Education, Mr Francis Ayaaba, said there were many schools in the district, which did not have adequate classrooms, and therefore, called on the government to provide more facilities to accommodate the increasing number of pupils.
The Headmaster of Gare-Gbane Primary School, Mr Johnson Konlan, said the overcrowding situation was affecting quality education delivery.