Diko Islamic School in Ahwerease-Darman in the Nsawam-Adoagyiri Municipality in the Eastern Region has appealed for support to enable it have a face-lift of the school infrastructure and help in the acquisition of some unavailable facilities.
The school is under the Islamic Education Project (IEP), manned by the Office of the National Chief Imam.
The school lacks facilities like a toilet, potable water and an Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Center with the roofs of some classrooms partly ripped off making classes impossible each time the rains set in.
The school can only boast of a shed made from palm fronds improvised to serve as a school canteen.
Due to the lack of portable water students comb the length and breadth of the town each morning to fetch water for domestic use.
The Headmaster, Saalu Sita Diko, in an interview with The Ghanaian Times said, this is a very worrying situation which hinders teaching and learning.
“Every morning our students roam the town from pipes to streams then to wells to fetch water for the school. They often return late when the lesson period is almost over.
Sometimes teachers have to wait for absent students to return with their buckets of water before classes commenceâ€, he said.
He added that the school, with a population of 295 pupils do not have access to good drinking water, toilet facilities and a well-resourced and furnished ICT centre.
According to Mr. Sita Diko, the school has only two toilets; one for teachers and the other for students, and this has made students resort to the frequenting of the bush as their place of convenience.
For his part, the ICT teacher, Mr. Saeed Diko, stated that, the room serving as the ICT Lab can only boast of two (2) functioning desktop computers out of the seven (7) with the rest being faulty.
“We have only two computers working and each time students visit the ICT Lab, I am unable to teach them simultaneously.
They always have to take turns to be able to get a feel of what is being taught that day. If I am not able to reach out to them within the allotted time, the class will have to be rescheduled to week later and this really affects our learningâ€, he said.
Adding to this, the secretary of the Parents and Teachers Association (PTA) of the school, Mr Mohammed Ayuba also expressed worry regarding parent’s inability to purchase text and exercise books for their wards.
He said this makes teaching difficult as some teachers are forced to do the funding.
Students of the school also appealed to the public to help with the painting of the school, which they claim reposes some confidence each time they set off to come to school.
STORY BY: Shadrack Odame Agyare