Pupils of Assin Hasowodze D/A Basic School in the Assin South District of the Central Region, who could have counted themselves lucky for having access to Information Communication Technology (ICT) tools, are now lagging behind in IT education due to a lack of ICT teachers.
Angel News’ Akosua Akyere Kumiwaa’s investigations revealed that the computers were donated by Ghana Investment Fund For Electronic Communications (GIFEC) about a year ago but have since been left in limbo.
Some of the final year students who would be writing their BECE in October were disturbed about the situation and said, the computerswhich have been left unused, are being consumed by dust.
“We don’t have an ICT teacher so even with our first mock exam, it was the objectives that helped us. We weren’t taught the subject so we found the paper difficult,” one of the student shared her difficulty.
Meanwhile, the school does not lack only ICT teachers, but Religious and Moral Education (RME) and Twi teachers as well. Due to that, some classes have been combined and it is having dire consequences on their academic work.
“We do not have teachers for other subjects like the RME and Twi. Time for BECE is almost due. We fear we may not be able to write and pass the papers well without the teachers.”
Some parents also lamented other needs of the school that demand urgent attention and called on the Member of Parliament for the area who doubles as the Deputy Minister of Education, Reverend Ntim Fordjour to come to their aid.
“There are no convenient housing facilities like bungalows here for the teacher’s comfort so I plead with the Deputy Minister of Education to come to our aid to help improve education outcomes in his community,” one of the parents told Angel News.
Meanwhile, the Director of Socioeconomic Development for the Catholic Archbishop of Cape Coast, Very Rev. Father Stephen Amoah Gyasi who is a resident of the area, recounted that Assin Hasowodze D/A Basic has the best environment conducive for teaching and learning so trainee teachers should accept posting to the school.
“The school is a beautiful place, but the unfortunate thing is that there is no primary 2 teacher so they have been combined. If you are in either class there is no difference because there are no teachers.
“When you go to the Junior High School, there are only four teachers and so they have no ICT nor RME teacher. Here is Assin and so we speak Twi but they have no Teacher for the local language. It is worrying” he lamented while leading with stakeholders to help post teachers to the school.
However, all efforts to get the attention of the Member of Parliament for the area who is also the Deputy Minister of Education and DCE has proven futile.
