Govt Must Address Infrastructure Challenges Facing O’Reilly SHS- Dr Worlanyo
Education infrastructure is an essential factor in determining the quality of learning and graduates being churned out, however, most public schools in Ghana lack basic infrastructure, such as classrooms, laboratories, a library, computer lab, electricity, and a quality learning environment.
While existing infrastructures in some public schools are in deplorable condition, others are below acceptable standards and in a few cases, nonexistent. In some of these schools, there is a lack of functional public sanitary facilities; hence, the ‘bush’ serves that purpose in such schools.
For instance, learning and boarding facilities at the O’Reilly Senior High School (SHS) at Spintex within the Ledzorkuku Municipality, are dilapidated, some abandoned at the foundation stage, and are in dire need of intervention.
Some wooden structures for the use of the kitchen and Visual Arts classroom by the O’Reilly school revealed the dire state of neglect of the school, which is a reflection of most public schools in the country.
Worried by the deplorable infrastructural facilities in the O’Reilly Senior High School (SHS), the Executive Director of Centre for Greater Impact Africa (CGIA), Rev. Dr Samuel Worlanyo Mensah, called on the government to make quick intervention and complete abandoned infrastructure in the school to boost quality education.
According to him despite the abundant resources of the country, many public schools are still wallowing in neglect and decadence regardless of substantial budgetary allocation to education annually.
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He added that the government Free Senior High School policy which brought relief to parents would be defeated if secondary schools are denied the basic needed infrastructure.
Dr Worlanyo Mensah who is also an Economist made the call when he visited the O’Reilly school as a concerned citizen upon receipt of complaints of poor infrastructure bedeviling the school, on Thursday, August 31, 2023.
Currently, the school has only three blocks comprising six units and seven units of classrooms for over 1,300 students.
Infrastructure challenges remained ripe; the school has no Assembly Hall, Dining Hall, Science and Computer Labs, sanitary facilities, and no proper drainage system, among other necessities of a public school.
Aside from infrastructural challenges, the school also faces external attacks by miscreants within its immediate environment who scale through the fencing wall to perpetrate crime and bolt out.
Some of the classroom projects commenced by the Ghana Education Trust Funds (GeTFund), including a science block are at a standstill as the Contractors are currently not on site.
It took the humanitarian intervention by Brigadier General (Rtd) Nunoo Mensah, a former security advisor to the late President John Evans Atta Mills to complete one of the three classroom blocks currently being used having been abandoned at the foundation level.
Similarly, the 1970 year of Old Students Union of the school provided a block for the Visual Arts department which is waiting to be commissioned.
Since then the school has been under severe challenges, especially its infrastructure, security, landed property, and roads that lead to the school.
The more significant part of the school’s landed property has been encroached on by private developers for residential and commercial enterprises, thereby posing security threats to both staff and students of the school.
This, Dr Worlanyo said the school which has produced several human resources for the country ought to be provided to meet the standard of education, especially being a school in the capital city.
In his considered view, it is unacceptable for a country like Ghana which prides itself on abundant natural resources to have such worst form of educational infrastructure challenges, stressing that, “despite the school’s outstanding performance and having produced quality graduates, the infrastructure challenges could erode the achievement and as well affect quality teaching and leading.”
Dr. Worlanyo called on national security and the police to step up with patrols in and around the school area to ward off criminals who jump through the school walls to attack students at night, whereas some unscrupulous developers continue to encroach on the school land with impunity.
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Dr Worlanyo said the neglect of the school is a sharp contrast to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) four implemented in 2015 across the world to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all countries by 2030.
This, he expressed doubt Ghana could achieve the target of the Sustainable Development Goal 4 of the United Nations by 2030 to provide quality education.
While appealing to the government, non-governmental organizations, and other humanitarian bodies to urgently intervene to help boost teaching and learning in the schools, Dr. Worlanyo advised the school authorities, the teaching and non-teaching staff to continue to offer their best and not to entertain any fear about external invasion.
He also urged parents and communities to complement the government’s effort at promoting education, adding that, investment in teaching and learning should not be left alone for the government.
O’Reilly Senior High School was established in 1925, the seventh oldest school in Ghana and the second oldest in Accra, the capital city.
It is situated in Spintex, a suburb of Accra, with a student population of 1,395 and 101 teaching and 34 non-teaching staff.
The majority of SHS courses are similar to those provided at other schools and some of the courses offered at O’Reilly are core mathematics, English language, Social Studies, and Integrated Science and the electives are Agriculture, Business, and Home economics, Visual Art, General Art and General Science
The school has produced quality graduates but has now been bedeviled with challenges caused by inadequate infrastructure, insufficient teaching staff, and lack of information, communication technology, ICT laboratories, and libraries.
The absence of teachers’ bungalows on campus has compelled management and teaching staff to live out the school, thereby compounding the vulnerability of the students to intruders at night.
Source: expressnewsghana.com
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