Regional News of Thursday, 31 January 2013

Source: GNA

Poor sanitation poses danger to pupils

A huge refuse dump located near the Islamic Call Basic School at Aboaso in the Kwabre East District is posing a serious health problem to both pupils and teachers of the school.

Already, a number of pupils and teachers have frequently complained of severe headaches, diarrhoea and other diseases and reported at hospitals.

Mr Ohene Asumaning Boachie, Headmaster of the School who took the Ghana News Agency around the school, said the bad stench and flies made teaching and learning virtually impossible.

He said the school might be forced to close down if immediate efforts were not made to evacuate the refuse from the school.

Mr Boachie, however, said the Kwabre East District Assembly had removed part of the refuse and hoped the rest would be done soon to curb possible closure of the school.

He said the school is one of the best in terms of academic performance in the Ashanti Region, adding that out of the 58 Islamic basic schools in the Ashanti Region, his school placed first in the 2012 Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

The Headmaster commended the GETFund for putting up a block of six classrooms for the school but said the block could not accommodate the increasing number of pupils who enrolled in the school every year and appealed to the district assembly to provide an additional classroom block for the school.

The Aboaso Islamic Call Basic School was founded by Mallam Alhassan, the Imam of the town in 1965 as an Arabic school.

In 1978, it was absorbed into the public education system and is a double stream with more than 600 pupils and 25 teachers.