A communication team member of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Margaret Ansei, blames the GHANACO ‘toilet to cubicle’ saga on the government’s failure to address infrastructural challenges in the secondary schools in the years after the implementation of the Free SHS policy.

She believes that policies from the government should come with proper planning, especially in the education sector.

According to her, accommodation challenges in schools have long existed, but the coming of the Free SHS should have prompted the government to address the infrastructural deficit before implementation.

“So, if today there is a policy that all children must go to school, it is a good thing. But in seven years, at least we should put all the parameters in place,” she said.

To her, the headmaster of Ghanaco acted to convert the toilet into dormitories because there wasn’t enough infrastructural development in the school as promised by the government.

“I don’t know how many dormitories the government under the Ministry of Education has built for the school in question and I do not really think that there will be a dormitory lying there and a rational person will convert toilet cubicles into dormitories for pupils,” she said

“I really think that the headmaster, as rational as he is, gone through the process to become a headmaster, will not just get up and say I am converting toilets into dormitories for human beings to go and sleep there” she went on to say.

Margaret Ansei further added that the government, prior to coming into office, promised to address the education challenges in the country, but it has failed woefully over the years.

“I remember prior to 2016, when Nana Addo was campaigning, he said he was going to build 350 schools from scratch. John Boadu amplified it, Nana Akomea also said the same thing. So, the 350 schools, if they are built, they are in their seventh year now at least… Ghanasco could get at least a 10-unit dormitory which can contain 50 students each. If we are seeing this today, then there is a challenge," she added.

Margaret Ansei said this on Metro TV’s Good Morning Ghana, monitored by
Ghanaweb.



NW/OGB