Kindergarten (KG) pupils up to Primary Six of Dagbasu Basic School in Wellembelle in the Sissala East District of the Upper West Region are currently having their lessons under trees.

At the time of visit on Friday, some of the students were found sitting on the bare floor with blocks of stones improvised as seats.

Meanwhile, two six-unit classroom blocks awarded in 2016 and 2015 by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) have both reached lintel and roofing levels respectively but work has since stalled due to lack of funding while the pupils continue to have their lessons under the trees.

The school established in 2006 now has a current population of 450 pupils but still depend on only the three-unit classroom block that was used to start the school.

Presently, it is clear that the three-unit classroom block is now woefully inadequate; a situation which compelled authorities of the school to use the three classrooms as Junior High School (JHS) while KG up to Primary six sat under trees.

Mr Batong Dimah Yussif, the Head Teacher of the school, in an interview, said the situation was seriously affecting effective teaching and learning in the school.

“The situation is so pathetic. I even have to convert the staff common room into a classroom for one of the classes to help the situation. Now teachers also use one of the trees as their common sitting place”, he said.

Mr Yussif said during this rainy season teaching and learning at the school was seriously affected, noting that anytime it was raining the whole school runs into the three classrooms causing overcrowding.
He said the school also lacked textbooks, saying it was just recently he used the capitation grant to purchase few textbooks for some of the classes but said it was still inadequate.

Mr Nuhu Jallo, the Parent Teacher Association (PTA) Chairman for the School, said since he assumed the position in 2016, the problems he encountered have become too much of a burden on the Association, the teachers and pupils of the school.

He said apart from the lack of classrooms and furniture, the school has no playing facilities for the kids in KG to play with and help boost their interest in coming to school.



Mr Tanko Daniel Dauda, Assemblymember for Wellembelle Electoral Area, said he has tried to reach out to authorities for them to facilitate the completion of the two projects but his efforts has always proved futile.

He said it was recently he heard that funds has been released to Zum Enterprise, the contractor for the project awarded in 2015, but the contractor is yet to report to the site.

He appealed to GETFund to get the two contractors to report to site and complete the projects to save the pupils from learning under such harsh conditions.