Imagine your ward in Senior High school sleeping in the open with the chop box for a whole term. That is the situation at the St. Joseph Technical Senior High School at Saboba.
Majority of male students have been compelled to sleep in the open due to inadequate dormitory facilities to contain the growing student population.
According to the students and school authorities, the situation is affecting academic activities and called for government intervention.
Established in 1967, the Saboba Technical Institute is one of the least developed schools in the Northern Region.
Inadequate infrustructure such as dormitories and classroom blocks, lack of means of transportation, water as well as other academic user facilities are some of the challenges facing the school.
With the introduction of Free Senior High School, the infrustructure challenges of the school keeps getting worse.
Four dormitory blocks, two of which are locally built-round structures of low standard, houses the 1,600 students.
The congestion in the dormitories has compelled most of the students to sleep in the open with their chop boxes.
“Our dormitories are not enough and the few ones too are chocked and so most of us have to sleep outside. As for our chop boxes they are always packed outside,“ Issah Lawal, a student said.
The Parent Teacher Association in 2020 levied parents to construct a hundred bed capacity dormitory block with the aim of addressing the situation.However, the situation still remains dire.
“Two years ago, as PTA we levied parents and raised some money which we used to construct a dormitory block and currently we are putting up a six unit classroom block. Though it is inadequate to solve the problem, it has reduced the pressure small,” the PTA Chairman, Joshua Mahama noted.
Headmaster of the school, Maxwell Atigyina said he had to deny over 400 students admission in 2021 due to inadequate infrustructure.
“Last year 1,000 students were placed here but we only admitted 600 for 14 programmes we run in the school so it’s a huge challenge for us”