Correspondence from Northern Region:

A six unit classroom block at Gburumani Ahmadiya Primary school has been left to rot in the Gburumani community under the Tolon District in the Northern Region after the roof was wrecked by a rainstorm two years ago.

The school is one of the oldest basic schools in the Gburumani community and has been serving about four communities in the Tolon District.

Speaking to the Assemblyman of the area, Ibrahim Mohammed, he indicated that the roof of the Six unit classroom block was ripped off since 2018 by a rainstorm and since then, the school has not been able to re-roof it due to financial constraint.

He added that, though the incident happened long before he was elected as Assembly Member for the area, through his efforts, only a section of the school building has been renovated to accommodate pupils.

He also indicated that countless efforts have been made to get the classrooms re-roofed and put to use, especially during this period of the coronavirus pandemic where more classrooms are needed to enable students observe the social distancing protocol when schools finally resume.

Hon. Mohammed, revealed to GhanaWeb's Northern Regional Correspondent that, he has been in constant interaction with Hon. Wahab Suhuyini Wumbei who is the MP of the area just to get the classrooms worked on but has not yielded any results.

Speaking to the community members in their local dialect Dagboni, they also appealed to government and NGOs to come to their support.




“We are calling on government and the NGOs to come to our aid to ensure that the classrooms are re-roof for students to enter," Mr. Abukari, a resident of Gburumani told GhanaWeb.

Mr. Baba another concerned resident in the Gburumani community explained, “this is a problem that keeps us awake in this community and we have contacted our local authorities to come to the support of the school but no response. We have also contacted the district assembly to come to our support but haven't heard from them.

“The student population of the school is of hundreds and because there are inadequate available classrooms, they are packed into the fewer classrooms left. Imagine sixty students in a classroom for a teacher to teach them, how would they understand?” he asked.




He added that, “because of this issue, the children don't like going to school again and when you asked them they tell you, school is not conducive for them and even if they go and it is threatening to rain, they run home because there is no place to stay."

Other people who spoke to GhanaWeb appealed to authorities, government, and NGOs to come to their aid by re-roofing the six(6) classrooms to help ease the overcrowding of students.