It would cost the government about $200 million to renovate dilapidated basic school structures across the country.
This is according to Education Minister, Mathew Opoku Prempeh, who has said the government has identified about 8,000 basic schools that need urgent refurbishment.
Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, the Minister said the schools identified had structures that threatened the lives of pupils.
“The ministry is aware of the deplorable state of a number of school buildings across the country. We have indented 8,208 schools that need intervention. The government is seeking funds to start a serious rehabilitation and renovation of these structures. We’ve done a comprehensive review of these structures and we need a massive injection of funds,” Matthew Opoku Premepeh said.
He noted that government was working assiduously to source the funds for work to commence immediately. He added that the government was working with the support of GETFund to undertake the project.
His comments were in response to a statement made on the floor of the house about a series of structural collapses of old basic schools in the country.
In April 2017, a six-unit pavilion of the Nkurankan Presby Primary School at Nkurankan in the Eastern Region collapsed, injuring five women.
The incident occurred after a downpour pulled down the 70-year old dilapidated school building.
A similar incident occurred in February when 6 pupils of Breman Gyamra Methodist Kindergarten School died after their dilapidated classroom collapsed.
Following the accidents, the Ghana Education Service ordered District Education Directors to audit all school buildings to gather information about their current states for the necessary action to be taken by the minister.
The Public Relations Officer of the GES, Reverend Jonathan Bettey, told Citi News his outfit will ensure all students learn in a safe environment.
“That was the order the Director-General of Ghana Education Service gave out to all the District Directors and Regional Directors. He personally requested that they should liaise with the District Assemblies because education is a collective responsibility of all stakeholders not only Ghana Education Service. They should liaise with the District Assemblies, they have technical officers who are the planning officers who can help them get all the necessary information that we need to be communicated to the Minister in charge for him to take an action on these issues.”
“In actual fact, all indications show that, according to the Minister, we are taking stock of all our buildings and statistics of all things to make sure that this does not happen to any community in the country.”
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(Via: CitiFM Online Ghana)
