Stakeholders in education at Paga in the Kasena-Nankana West District of the Upper East Region, are worried that the current state of the Paga Senior High School could lead to a poor performance of the students in their final exams.

The school currently operates from an uncompleted E – Block built under the John Mahama NDC government as part of the Community Day Senior High Schools.

Also, the school’s girls’ hostel which was gutted by fire at the beginning of this year and is yet to be repaired and now at the mercy of harsh weather.

As a result, some students are forced to rent their own accommodation within the Paga town and this is encouraging truancy and putting some of the girls at risk.

Joy News Upper East Correspondent, Albert Sore who visited the school reports that stakeholders including the Paramount Chief of Paga are extremely worried about the situation and want government and other organizations to intervene.

Background

The Paga Senior High School has a student population of nearly 800.

The school was started in the year 2010 as a community senior high school.

It was absorbed by the government through the Ghana education service, in the 2012 – 2013 academic year.

The E – shaped block was constructed for the school by the John Mahama – led NDC government, under the community day senior high school projects.

Although the building is largely uncompleted, the classrooms are being used and a long hall within the building is being used as a makeshift hostel for some of the boys.

This is because the Paga Senior High School is officially a day school but most of the students come from far away communities and it would be impossible for them to commute to school from their homes on a daily basis.

Therefore, management of the school in collaboration with the PTA managed to get a hostel for the boys and converted this GET Fund 12-unit classroom block into a hostel for the girls to make it more convenient for them to attend classes.

 Fire Disaster at Girls’ Hostel

However, in January this year, the top floor of the hostel was gutted by fire.

Vitus Angkyier, the headmaster of the Paga Senior High School said nothing was salvage by the Fire Service personnel who came to fight the fire.

He said a hundred girls who were living on that floor were displaced.

“After the fire gutted the place, we appealed to the district assembly and the support they gave us was to put louvre blades and mosquito nets in one of the open halls in the E – Block; it is more or less a conference hall. That is where the boys are staying and the girls [who were displaced] have been moved to where the boys were staying”, the headmaster told Joy News.

The top floor of the gutted building remains a death trap, nearly six months after the fire disaster.

With the rainy season setting in, the school management fears that the building could eventually collapse, if it is not immediately repaired.

“Where the boys are staying currently is a temporal place. If the contractor comes back to say he wants to continue work on that building, the boys will be displaced. And what it means is that when students are placed in this school, they will refuse and look for other schools with better facilities. And that invariably will reduce our enrolment drive”, Angkyier said.

The Problems

The makeshift hostels are not too conducive for the students of the Paga Senior High School.

There is also not enough space to accommodate all the students who come from faraway areas.

For that reason, some of the students have to rent their own rooms within the Paga town and this is affecting their education.

“Most of the students have gone out to rent [rooms] and because of this, some of them come to school late. Sometimes, others leave the school before closing time or they don’t even come to school at all because they have rented their rooms in faraway places”, said Erica Anafo, the Senior Girls’ Prefect of the School.  

Another female student, Safura Mumuni said; “Now that some of the students are living outside [the campus], they don’t come to school and some of the girls are pregnant because there is no regular discipline on them”.

Efforts to solve the problem

The Paga Youth Movement – a youth association in the town is mobilizing resources to try help the school but their effort alone is enough.

Richard Alogtiga, the Chairman of the Youth Movement said they had mobilized some contributions and purchased some bags of cement in a bad to get the destroyed building reconstructed but the contributions they got will not be enough to complete the work.  

“We have got a mason to start doing the work and we hope that the government upon seeing this, will give us the needed support”, he said.

The Management Board of the Paga Senior High School says the problem will be solved if the school is given a boarding status with new accompanying facilities.

However, government is yet to approve their application to make the school a boarding one.

Thomas Awiah, a retired educationist and a member of the school’s Management Board said the chief had added his voice to the calls for the school to be given the boarding status by making an appeal to President Akufo – Addo when he visited the chief’s palace some time back.

“So, we want to appeal again to the president to come to our aid because he promised us that he will make sure the school is given a boarding status”, Awiah said.

Paramount chief of the Paga Traditional area, Pe Awampaga II is worried about the situation at the Paga SHS because it is only High School in the area.

 “It is rainy season and I know the children [in the school] are suffering. So, we are appealing to government, Ghana Education Service, NGOs and the ‘Paga Tiina’ [people from Paga] across the world to come and help us because the school is for all of us”, he said.

For now, the students and teachers of the Paga Senior High School will just have to continue to improvise to keep teaching and learning going until help arrives.