Mr John Ziemah, the Senior Superintendent of the Pong-Tamale Vocational School has expressed concern about the lack of interest among students to gain admission into the school.

He explained that for over ten years now, only four students had applied and gained automatic admission saying, “The situation is not encouraging and it’s difficult to run the administration of the school effectively”.


Mr Ziemah expressed the concern at the weekend during an interaction with the media in Pong-Tamale in the Savelugu/Nanton Municipality when the Pong-Tamale youth popularly known as the Parliamentary Youth Group visited the school to assess the situation.

He said the school, which is under the Social Welfare had been abandoned by its large population of students even before he was transferred from Sunyani in the Brong Ahafo Region to the school in 2007.

He said the school was a Correctional Centre and Vocational School, which was previously known as “Boys Industrial School” and meant to train students in Carpentry, Masonry, Tailoring, and Hair dressing.

Mr Ziemah said the school also used to admit deviant youth and train them to become better citizens in society and that since the school was not functioning well, the deviant youth often refused admission or run away soon after admission.

He said the Vocational school was in a very good condition with all the necessary facilities needed to help train students with no or less challenges, including both Boys and Girls dormitory to accommodate boarders.

Among the tools and equipment available are 30 sewing machines, which had also been abandoned in a store room and now need servicing to function well.

He said the duration for tuition and training was three years and that currently there were only four students and four teachers but the student abandoned classes during the Ramadan period.

Mr Fuseini Abdallah Justice, the Assemblyman for the VET/Nayili Pong in the Savelugu constituency said, printed admission forms were given out to interested students for free enrolment but no one came for admission.

Mr Abdul-Rauf Abdul-Majid, the Public Relations Officer of the Parliament Youth Group said due to the long vacation of the Vocational school, people had encroached on the school’s land.

The vision of the Parliamentary Youth Group was to collaborate with other organisations to aid in the Health and Educational sector of the community.

The Parliamentary Youth Group later donated some benches to the Pong-Tamale Healthcare centre to ensure that expectant mothers no longer sat on the floor during antenatal visits.