My love of Kumawu Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School, formerly Kumawu Tweneboa Kodua Secondary School, my alma mater, and the fact that I am a native of Kumawu, do necessitate that I show concern about the developments in the school that have the potential to destroy the academic performance and the welfare of the students; dent the reputation and the national standing of the school. This is why I publish my views about the school when things are going wrong in the hope of getting them corrected.
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It is not that I have earmarked any one particular person for lambasting from time to time. It is just unfortunate that the buck always stops with the headmaster. Truly, the headmaster for sometime now has been seen to be the problem but not the solution.
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I am not going to define the role of the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) in the life of Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School. They know their aims, objectives and how best to achieve their set goals. However, I shall be informing them of the following to draw their attention in case it has never crossed their mind.
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Teachers have been leaving the school in droves due to poor school academic performance by students which they feel, is a blot on their integrity as astute teachers as they are. The discipline in the school has practically broken down owing to the attitude of the headmaster that has given the students plenty of leeway.
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The Old students (alumni) of the school are no longer willing to assist the school because they get no recognition for their achievements. In known diverse ways that they had been helping the school, they have become aware that the headmaster claims to be doing such things from the schools funds. Does this mean that the headmaster has found a clever way of balancing the school accounts even when he dips his hands into it to satisfy his personal needs by claiming he had footed a project that was indeed funded by the alumni of the school?
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The headmaster is planning to curtail very drastically the amount of times the aging school's water tanks do rounds to the school's own dug borehole In Kumawu-Wonoo to fetch water to cater for the basic needs of the students. Wonoo is about six kilometres away from the school.
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The students are obliged to fetch water from the nearby two streams, Fotene and...... (the name has just escaped my mind). I remember very well that during my time at the school water from Fotene was taken to the school's science lab and when tested by the science students, it was found to abound in germs, worms, bacteria or simply put, creepy-crawlies that the naked eye cannot see but with microscope.
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The water was found to be not good for drinking but probably, for washing our school uniforms and for bathing. However, some of us out of urgent necessity to quench our thirst as dictated by nature, had on several occasions drunk the water. The water from the stream is still in the same state and quality as it was in the 1970s, I suppose. However, the current students have to use it on some occasions to compensate for the shortfall in the water supply to them from Wonoo.
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Following the Headmaster's announcement to significantly reduce the water supply from Wonoo because the school can no longer afford the cost of diesel/petrol used, and the cost of servicing the trucks, some students have decided to seek admissions elsewhere in the next academic year.
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They are of the opinion that it does not worth it to come to a school where they have no potable water, or will have to spend most of their school time frequenting streams to fetch water for their basic daily water needs. Why should they come to a school where indiscipline is allowed to ramify while the teaching staffs, especially the headmaster, keep a blind eye? Why should they come to an academically non-performing school?
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I am again not here to define the role of the Parent-Teacher Association, however, you should have a joint oversight role to play along side the headmaster to obtain not only the best academic results for the students but also, to guarantee their health, safety and security at all time that they remain the students of the school.
Please arrange to get the school infirmary re-opened. If you need extra help to sit the headmaster down to agree with you on a plan of action to salvage the fast dwindling academic image and the poor social circumstances of the students, please do get the School Board of Governors informed of your concerns.
I see it as a defeatist idea for teachers to quit the school because of the style of leadership being practiced by the headmaster. Is he a democrat, autocrat or a laissez-faire type? By the fruits of the tree, ye shall know the tree.
I implore the teachers to stay. I beg the students not to leave the school as planned by some of them from the cities who are unknown to fetching water from streams before they can meet, if not to supplement, their daily water consumption needs.
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The students are to take their studies seriously.
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All the above suggestions can be met if the PTA could live up to expectation without allowing the headmaster to break their backbone.
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Rockson Adofo
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