Pupils of Kweikuma Metro Authority (M/A) Basic School in Kweikuma, a suburb of Sekondi, in the Sekondi-Takoradi metropolis of the Western Region, study in constant fear as the compound and surroundings of the school floods anytime it rains.
The situation, which has persisted for over a decade, has affected the school’s enrolment as most parents have withdrawn their wards to the nearby schools for fear of any misfortune.
The highest class has about twenty pupils whilst other classrooms have been closed and given to churches who have assisted the school in various ways.
Against this backdrop, they have made a passionate appeal to the metro authority, the Ghana Education Service (GES), corporate organisations, individuals and benevolent institutions to come to their aid.
A visit to the school by Weekend Today revealed that that the school was situated at a flood-prone area and therefore gets flooded even with the slightest downpour.
At the time this reporter got to the school, the down floors of the school which houses the Kindergarten (KG) pupils had been inundated with flood waters.
And this also included rooms for the student-teachers who are doing their teaching practice.
Weekend Today further observed that the area lacked proper drainage system whereas the bridge leading to the school’s compound had collapsed, allowing running water to overflow its banks and meandering its way to the school compound and the classrooms.
The JHS block, our reporter discovered, had no drain behind, a situation which allowed flood water to forcibly find its way through the doors flooding the classrooms.
Meanwhile, the paper found out that drain at the back of the primary block was too small to contain the volume of running water since the school was in a valley.
When Weekend Today contacted the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) Chairman of the school, Acquah Harrison, lamented that all efforts to get the metro authority, the Ghana Education Service and other corporate organisations to come to their aid has yielded no result.
According to him, parents of the few children left at the school were not comfortable anytime the weather threatens to rain in that the school would get flooded and their little ones could cross the bridge home, leaving them to their fate.
The situation, he said, was also affecting teaching and learning badly, leading to poor academic performance of the children despite frantic efforts by the teachers.
He said the school needed a fence wall to prevent residents from turning the school’s toilet into a public toilet and to reduce the amount of water that passes through it.
The compound, he further suggested, needed to be filled while stressing the need for proper drains to be constructed at the back of the school building to direct some of the water that finds its way to the school.
Join GhanaStar.com to receive daily email alerts of breaking news in Ghana. GhanaStar.com is your source for all Ghana News. Get the latest Ghana news, breaking news, sports, politics, entertainment and more about Ghana, Africa and beyond.
