A group of young men and women derived from this group and who have chosen to call themselves the Young African Leaders Network-Ghana spent the International Youth Day at the Essikaso Odumase Methodist Primary School in Essikaso Odumase in the Upper West Akim District of the Eastern Region. The group met the Chiefs of the two villages, community leaders, and parents as well as staff of the school.
The school, which serves two villages, Odumase and Aburi, is located in Odumase and was started in 1936. It currently has a three-classroom block, which serves class 1 to class 6; this means that two classes occupy one classroom. The school also has a Kindergarten, which is a makeshift shed. The school has a population of 196, with 8 teachers, 4 of whom are diploma holders, 3 teacher trainees and 1 untrained teacher. The untrained teacher takes care of the Kindergarten and is paid by the community.
Problems:
1. JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL BLOCK.
Pupils from the two villages after class six have to move from Odumase to Essikaso for JHS, this is about a two hour walk from Odumase. This results in a lot of the pupils dropping out of school. The Ghana Education service has approved a JHS for the community on condition they provide the structures for it
2. TEACHING AND LEARNING MATERIALS.
Although the Ghana Education Service provides these teaching and learning materials, the school stated that they would take all the help they can get. A case in point is the fact that the GES has provided them with the syllabus of each class, but these are on Compact Discs. The school does not even have a computer to be able to access the syllabus
3. HIGH RATE OF ABSENTEEISM.
The Head teacher stated that there was a high rate of absenteeism in the school and several reasons were deduced after our interactions with the parents, community leaders and the pupils, including:
a. Lack of playing materials: All work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy indeed. The pupils felt school was boring and so would rather stay at home
b. Feeding: Some parents complained that since school feeding in the school was not regular, they did not have money for the pupils to buy food. They would rather ask their children to stay at home on days the children will not be fed. The pupils would rather go to the farm than school because ‘At the farm, you are fed but in school you are not’
c. Potable Drinking Water: The community has no potable source of drinking water; hence everyone in the community drinks from the stream. This results in several diseases, which keep the children at home.
Solutions:
Based on the problems of the communities, members of the network proffered the following solutions:
1. Individual members pledged to donate 2 desktop computers with a printer, 3 footballs and sports kits, Textbooks and other educational materials. These will be presented to them in the second week of September
2. The community agreed after discussions to have one farm dedicated to the school. The community agreed to provide land and hands to work on the farm for the school. The produce from the farm will be used to augment the school-feeding program. The rest of the produce from the farm will be sold and the proceeds used to support infrastructural development in the school.
The community was very grateful for the program. We will like to use this opportunity to appeal to well meaning people who can help donate items, especially teaching and learning materials to the pupils of Essikaso Odumase Methodist Primary School.
Read more at:ModernGhana
