GES Director clashes with Headmaster, accused Him of being naive over School challenges 

The Abuakwa South Municipal Director of Education, Mr Daniel Yeboah Nyahu, openly embarrassed the headmaster of St. Stephens Senior High Technical School (STEPSS), Frank Appiah for being uncandid about the plight of the school.

He said claims made by the Headmaster of the school in a speech delivered earlier was not an entirely true statement.

“There are some developments ongoing on the school compound. Your statement that it has never seen any development is false”.

The disputation by the GES Director during a durbar to receive 200 mono desks from Benjilo Foundation caused a murmur among the students and staff who believes the director was being insensitive to their plight.

St. Stephens Senior High Technical school (STEPSS), is located at Akyem Asiakwa in Abuakwa South Municipality in the Eastern Region of Ghana, is reeling under serious infrastructural and logistic crises amidst an exponential increase in the population of students.

The infrastructural and furniture crises in the school have forced students to lean against a wall or sit on the floor to learn, stand to eat at dining, and sleep in an uncompleted dormitory block.

The school established in 1978 as a private community day school was absorbed by the government in 1985.

It attained boarding status in 2019 however has no single boarding facility available to accommodate the students, forcing authorities of the school to push students to occupy an uncompleted girl’s dormitory facility abandoned over a decade ago.

St. Stephens Senior High Technical School's (STEPSS) Headmaster, Frank Appiah opined, in a speech delivered that “a GET FUND project of one storey dormitory block started six years ago has not been completed. The project is 90% complete but all efforts to persuade the contractor have proved futile.

Though not complete, the school authorities are compelled to ask borden girls to occupy the building because there is nowhere to house them”.

Adding “the school has never benefited from any package in respect of the distribution of school buses from the government to SHS since government absorbed the school.

“School is without a school bus and all efforts to get one from the Ministry of Education or elsewhere have proved futile. This precarious situation has made it difficult for management to run the school because the school spends a lot on special trips for students and the staff” The headmaster said.

The school have not received any major infrastructural expansion and supply of logistics despite the exponential increase in the student population.

 Congested Classroom 

The Headmaster said classrooms are congested but with a mono desks deficit of 1,114. The inadequate furniture forces students to either lean against walls or sit on the floor to learn.

Teachers also do not have tables and chairs therefore stand throughout their class lessons.

“There is serious congestion in classrooms some students at the moment sit in two in one mono desk, others also stand and some also sit on the floor for lessons which are hindering effective teaching and learning. Their notables and Chairs for teachers therefore teachers stand throughout to teach, have no tables to mark exercises, exams. No furniture in the staff common” the headmaster said.

 Uncompleted Assembly Hall turned classroom 

The headmaster stated that the Assembly hall is being used as a dining hall and classrooms for five classes.

The lack of dining tables and chairs forces students to either sit on the floor or stand to eat while holding their meal.

“This school is also without a kitchen. The kitchen staff operates under an open shed making the place vulnerable. During raining season, the kitchen staff finds it difficult operating which affects the school’s timetable and instructional hours”.

St. Stephen’s Senior High Technical School is without administration block,” A structure that is supposed to be a workshop for technical students have been partitioned into smaller rooms and offices and being used as administration block no”.

At the moment there is no single Bungalow at the compound for staff “all the staff members commute from Asiakwa and its environs. What makes the situation serious is the difficulty in controlling the more than 1000 borders especially at the night”

The ICT Lab in the school is very small which cannot even accommodate one class at a time. Some students have to stand outside for their colleagues to finish before they also have their lessons.

To ameliorate the plight of the school, the Benjilo Foundation founded by the Director of Finance at National Youth Authority, Benjamin Akaa Otoo, a native of Kyebi on Thursday, August donated 200 pieces of mono desks to the school.

Okyenhemaa Nana Adutwumwaa Dokua amazed by the depressing challenges facing the school assured conveying their plight to the appropriate authorities to come to the aide of the school with alacrity. She however urged the students to learn hard despite the challenges

William Ofori Akwaboa, Eastern Regional Correspondent