The Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the Konchuri Basic School in the Jirapa Municipality has appealed to benevolent individuals and organisations to consider building a befitting classroom block for the Junior High Students. The appeal was necessitated by the lack of befitting classrooms for Junior High School (JHS) one to three students compelling them to sit in dilapidated structures for teaching and learning. The PTA led the community to build two mud structures to temporarily host the children while they waited for government intervention. Speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in the community, Mr Charles Anatakang, the PTA Chairman, described the structures accommodating the JHS children as 'death traps' since they could collapse at any time. 'We do not have any option if not the children are not supposed to be sitting in these structures, they are not safe inside here. Anytime it threatens to rain the children run into other classrooms because they fear it will collapse on them,' he explained. He said the government constructed the kindergarten (KG) block for the community while a philanthropist built six classrooms for primary one to six. The PTA Chairperson observed that the timely intervention by providing the JHS block for the community would save the children from imminent disaster as the current structure they sat in risk of collapsing. Mr Anatakang also mentioned that the school lacked teacher's accommodation, which discouraged many teachers from staying in the community to teach. He added that the lack of a source of potable water for the school children at the school was also affecting effective teaching and learning. 'Because there is no borehole in the school, some children will pretend that they are going to the house to drink water but will never return. If the boreholes were to be here the child would go there, drink the water, and return to the classroom', he explained. Meanwhile, Mr Huudu Kunaateh, the Jirapa District Director of Education, said the direc torate was aware of the challenge at the school and had informed the Municipal Assembly to provide a befitting classroom block for the children. He, however, joined the PTA in making a passionate appeal to the benevolent society to intervene as the District Assembly was not swift in responding to their plea of providing a classroom block. Source: Ghana News Agency
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