Education

School use blocks as tables and chair while education minister wastes scares resources on one student one tablet project (Video)

WISDOM K.E HAMMOND 1 year ago

In 2024, there are still basic school children who have to either sit on the floor to study or sit on building blocks to learn while the education minister invests millions of cedis into a needless one-student, one-tablet project at the SHS level. The school that has popped up via a Twitter video has a classroom that can be best described as a playground in a slave camp located in a mediaeval town. However, the Sawla–Tuna–Kalba District, which was carved out of the then-Bole District in 2004, is the epicentre where this magnificent, ugly, and insulting video emanated from.

The political choices of people in political positions have clouded their choices, making people who should be transformative choose to deal with “wants” rather than “needs.” in society.

If the funding for the School One Student, One Tablet project is external, we should have our priority right as a nation and call for such funding to be used to build the foundation of our education sector. The current government has neglected basic education and underfinanced it since 2018.

When videos like these pop up on the internet, they tell us how weak our leaders are when it comes to problem-solving skills and decision-making. It also indicates how wasteful we are as a nation at all levels concerning the misapplication of funds on flamboyant yet less-needed projects and policies for mere political points.

The video shared in this post sums up how many of us as Ghanaians will see nothing wrong with this. This video clearly shows us how we, as a nation, destroy dreams and talents through the politically motivated decisions and choices we make rather than solution-focused choices.

Before the 2016 elections, the then-running mate of the NPP and now Vice President, Dr Bawumia, visited a similar school, mocked the previous government, took pictures with the children, and offered them help. That was brilliant.

It has been close to 8 years, and the question is: how much such support has the government provided to such schools since it took office, and what has Dr. Bawumia done about these schools you saw as a political ambition marketing opportunity? Instead, we are so engulfed in providing students with tablets they do not need that we have not been able to provide textbooks to learners in basic schools since the new curriculum was introduced in 2019.

In the midst of all these, we deemed it more rewarding to sink so much money into building a national cathedral that has refused to resurrect beyond the foundation and has been smeared with misuse of resources, corruption, and wasteful spending.

There is a total disconnect between meeting our needs in the education sector and the challenges that confront it. We are not solving our education sector problems that demand all our attention.

If our political leaders will not enrol their wards in such schools, then the ordinary citizens and voters who queued to vote them into power deserve far better schools and social amenities than the politician and his or her family.

Some pictures of pupils in schools in Ghana dating back to the 1960s paint a better picture of a more decent classroom than what you see in this video. Our political leaders are only interested in city schools and investing in already well-established public schools instead of investing in schools located in communities in the hinterlands.

In the attached video, you can see that most of the students have converted three to four concrete blocks into tables and one or more of the same blocks into chairs. Even this kind of desk is a luxury because not all the kids have it, meaning those who do not have it will have to sit on the bar floor to study.

According to the man who recorded the video, teachers posted in the community have always fled to the city when they see the demoralising working environment brought about by the negligence of the government and the district assembly of the area where the school is located.

The Ministry of Education, the Ghana Education Service, and the government of Ghana must be very disappointed in themselves if they come across this video. How can you call this a school? How can you drive all the best cars, eat the best food, have all the luxuries that come with serving the people of Ghana, and leave our children, future leaders, talents, and lives in this mess? I challenge the leadership of the MOE and GES to enrol their wards in this school now if they do not see anything wrong with this kind of poor infrastructure.