A total of 1,448 school children in the Wa West District, will be relieved from the hurdle of having to sit or lie on the bare floor to receive academic instructions for lack of furniture.
That was after the Wa West District Assembly presented some 724 dual desks to the Wa West District Education Directorate for onward distribution to schools that are in dire need of furniture to help reduce the furniture deficit.
Madam Vida Diorotey, the District Chief Executive (DCE), who handed over the furniture, said the intervention had become necessary because the inadequate furniture in some schools was affecting academic activities.
The Ghana News Agency had earlier carried reports on inadequate furniture in some schools in the Wa West District, which was affecting the quality of teaching and learning.
The latest of such reports was from the Kyietanga basic school in the Siiri Electoral Area where school children lie on the dusty floors to learn while teachers placed wooden boards on windows to enable them write and to mark exercises.
Madam Diorotey expressed the hope that though the furniture presented was not enough to meet the demand, it would help reduce the challenge while the Assembly worked diligently to resolve the issue head-on despite the limited resources.
She said the 724 pieces of furniture would supplement the about 400 pieces of furniture the assembly secured and presented to the education directorate in 2022.
“There are many schools here that cannot benefit from the furniture we are giving today, but we are still working to get more for the rest of the schools,” the DCE said.
Aside from the furniture challenge, Madam Diorotey said inadequate infrastructure at the schools had also been a challenge to the education sector in the district.
She gave the assurance that the assembly was not relenting on its efforts to deal with the myriad of challenges confronting the educational sector in the district.
“The poor performance of the school children in the district is not only the cause of the parents but also because of the lack of or inadequacy of these necessities such as books and infrastructure.
The improvement of education is not the responsibility of one person, it requires all hands on deck approach,” Madam Diorotey observed.
Mr Ametus Tug-uu, the Wa West District Director of Education, who received the furniture, expressed gratitude to the District Assembly and the DCE for the intervention, which he said would help alleviate the plight of the school children and the teachers.
He also appealed to other kind-hearted individuals, groups, and organisations to come to their aid by supporting them with more furniture to help improve the provision of quality education to children in a dignified environment.
Mr Tug-uu said there were 309 schools in the district comprising 110 Kindergarten (KG), 111 Primary, and 88 Junior High Schools, and said the Wa West District was the worst affected among all the districts he had worked in as far as the issue of furniture was concerned.