Lack of classroom infrastructure has prevented the Atibie Midwifery/Health Assistant Training School from admitting students for the Health Assistant Course (HAC) programme for two years now.

Addressing the matriculation ceremony of the school at Attibie on Saturday, Mrs Paulina Osabutey, the principal of the school, said several attempts and appeals to district and municipal assemblies, especially in the Kwahu area, did not yield the desired result.

“As a result of the severe shortage of classroom infrastructure, five groups of students comprising three batches of registered midwifery students and two batches of the post basic midwifery students struggle continually in an uncomfortable rotational arrangement to use the limited classrooms available for teaching and learning”.

She indicated that another academic year, 2013/2014, loomed ahead and there were no indications that classroom blocks would be available for use by students.

Mrs Osabutey said the implications of that would be the school’s inability to reopen admissions for the HAC programme and also to limit intake of students for existing programmes.

She, therefore, appealed to the Kwahu East, West and North assemblies to pool resources to build at least a three-unit classroom facility that could accommodate up to 300 students in total.

Mrs Osabutey also expressed worry about the complete lack of backup power plant for use in the school when power from the main national grid went off. She said the school currently did not have any source of power anytime power went off, especially, in the night.

Mrs Osabutey said apart from the serious inconvenience the situation posed to staff and students, it also had severe security implications for a predominantly female school.

She, therefore, challenged the government, through the Eastern Regional Director of Health Services and the Ministry of Health, the municipal and district assemblies, especially, those in Kwahu area, Kwahu philanthropists and businessmen to support the school.

The principal also expressed concern about the lack of decent accommodation units to house both the teaching and the non-teaching staff of the school.

She said that the quality of a school’s curriculum and its academic worth depended largely on the availability of the required numbers of qualified tutors to mentor students and take them through the prescribed syllabus and training regimen.

Mrs Osabutey charged the matriculants to be of good character, avoid bad behaviour and habits and be associated with only what was good.

She challenged them to pay particular attention to their studies and take it seriously in order to make the grades, reminding them that they would be withdrawn from the school if they failed to make the required grades.

In all, the school admitted 130 students made up of 59 for registered midwifery and 71 for post basic midwifery.