The headteacher of the John Evans Atta Mills Senior High School at Ekumfi Otuam in the Central Region, Kwami Alorvi, has debunked rumours that the school is collapsing due to high cost of school fees and lack of qualified teachers.
He said the student population since its inception of the school stands at 279, and that none of the students have stopped schooling.
There have been reports in the media to the effect that about 200 students of the over 250 who were enrolled in the 2015/2016 academic year, have stopped schooling because of lack of accommodation, expensive school fees and lack of qualified teachers.
Citi News’ checks however revealed that over 200 students were busily taking part in class tests.
With staff strength of 35, the school offers programmes such as Agriculture Science, Business and General Art, whiles preparation is underway to introduce General Science by September 2016.
In an interview with Citi News, the headmaster of the school, Kwami Alorvi, said the allegations were mischievous and should be treated with contempt.
“We have 279 students in the school made up of 189 boys and 91 girls so that allegation is not true so I urge you all to disregard the allegation from those unseen faces.”
He also noted that the government has absorbed items on the school bill for the students.
“They also alleged that the school fees is GHc 250 cedis that is also incorrect because the fees for the term is Gh79 cedis and out of that, the government absorbed ten items on the bill for the first term that is Gh38 cedis and second term they increased the items from Gh38 cedis to Gh54 cedis so as at now, the fees that the students are supposed to pay is only GHc 25 cedis.”
He said transportation coupled with students and staff accommodation, are the biggest challenges facing the first Community Day Senior High School, which is one of the 200 government has promised to build across the country.
“The nearest town to the school is Otuam which is about 6 kilometers away and other communities they are about 18 kilometers away so indeed transportation is a challenge because they have to take taxi to school and back.Then accommodation too, Otuam is a small fishing community and the accommodation there is not available and they are not even decent. My difficulty would be how to accommodate the new students in next term after admitting them.”
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By: Akwesi Koranteng/citifmonline.com/Ghana