The Ministry of Education has made claims on the need of new schools to be set up amidst the Sene East drowning incident after its investigations.
This is therefore going to put a stop to students crossing over river bodies to attend school in other communities.
The spokesperson of the Ministry of Education, Kwasi Kwarteng said this in an interview aired on JoyNews’ Midday News on Thursday, January 26, 2023.
“If you look at the preliminary report that came in, one of the recommendations is that GES is exploring if it could even site schools, because now you realise that even though the communities are about 850, there is a possibility that some of the adjoining communities could also fill the school if it is established,” he stated.
His comment followed after eight pupils unfortunately drowned while crossing the Volta Lake to school in the area this week.
Jerome Kofi Gyimah, Sene East District Chief Executive while speaking on the incident requests the Education Ministry to attend to the needs of the island communities.
According to him, he has handed over a list of teachers to be employed by the Ghana Education Service (GES) as a result of insufficient number of teachers in the area.
“I went to Education Minister, Dr Adutwum several times requesting for those teachers to be employed and here is the case they have not been employed and we still have inadequate number of teachers. So assuming that we are having enough teachers, those there could have gotten annexed at Wayokope school for teachers to stay and teach the children,” he said.
However, Mr Kwarteng says most teachers who get posted tend to abandon their works due to the conditions in the vicinity.
This, he noted was a challenge to the Education Ministry.
“The surrounding schools, mostly when you post teachers there, a lot of them are unable to take their appointments because a lot of them prefer to stay in the bigger towns….some of them have to commute about two hours before they reach these 10 schools within the island.
“So you have teachers being posted there, most times about a year or two, some of them even vacate their posts which is a very difficult challenge,” he lamented.
When asked why the pupils were without life jackets while crossing the river, he replied “they ought to have life jackets for them.”
Meanwhile, the Sene East District Police command continues with the investigating on the circumstances that led to the drowning of the eight school children on the Volta Lake, on Monday.