Regional News of Monday, 1 December 2003

Source: GNA

Parents Teacher Association sends SOS for assistance

Old Ningo (GNA), Nov. 30, GNA - The Parent-Teacher Association of the Ningo Secondary School on Saturday appealed to the Ministry of Education and the Dangbe West District Assembly to place the school on priority by providing it with the needed infrastructure and teaching materials to enable it to improve on its academic and administrative work.

The PTA said the school established in 1976 by a private citizen of the town, Mr W. G Nartey started initially with eight students and grew to 150 students in 1970 before the Government took over as a community based one.

The PTA said since its absorption into the public system both the community, Government and the District Assembly had done very little to improve the infrastructure of the school.

Mr SA Rhack Nartey, Chairman of the PTA, said this at the general meeting of the PTA of the School at Old Ningo at which discussions were held on the PTA's contributions to school project, academic performance, payment of fees, construction of places for convenience for boys and girls dormitories and payment of levy for health insurance scheme.

The Chairman of the PTA lamented that, even though, NINSEC was one of the deprived schools in the Dangbe West District it was not chosen as one of the special schools to be upgraded.

Mr Nartey said the PTA had in its modest contribution put up two masters bungalows and appealed for assistance for the provision of accommodation for both classrooms and dormitories to cater for the increasing student intake.

Mr Christopher K. Sedefia, Headmaster of the School, said the major problems facing the school were the uncooperative attitude of the people of the area, problem of water supply even though there was a 1.09 million litres capacity water reservoir and an abandoned foundation for a seven-storey building complex.

He said due to the acute water shortage facing the school it had so far spent about 6.9 million cedis to provide water service during this term and that parents were to be surcharged for the provision.

Mr Sedefia said the school authorities were interested in ensuring that the students achieved success in their final examinations and called on parents to lend their support to the school's code of discipline and academic programme.

He advised parents to ensure that they paid their children's school fees and other requirements so that the school could achieve the needed results it envisaged.

The Headmaster appealed to the Ghana Water Company and the District Assembly to come to the assistance of the school with the provision of potable water, completion of the school projects and a means of transport to facilitate teaching and learning.

Mr Sedefia appealed to the Valco Fund; Diplomatic Missions and other non-governmental organisations to come to the assistance of the school since it was the only senior secondary school serving more than five communities including Tema and Ashiaman townships.

Mr Fiifi Arkorful, Member of the Dangbe West Health Service, explained the health insurance scheme to the PTA and urged them to patronise the scheme since it would go a long way in ensuring that students were promptly catered for when they fell ill.

He said all those, who would contribute to the scheme would have the advantage of access to a number of health centres and hospitals in the district including the Tema, Akosombo, Battor and Akuse Hospitals for their health needs.

Mr Arkorful said there were no limits to the number of times a contributor could attend a clinic and that the health insurance was to cater for members of the communities in case of any eventuality.

He advised contributors to ensure that they presented genuine prescriptions and receipts duly signed so that their medical bills could be readily processed.