The Moderator of Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rt. Rev Prof.Joseph Obiri Yeboah Mante has announced that the Church will in the short term construct a 4-unit pavilion classroom block for RIIS Presby school in Koforidua to fix the accommodation crises facing the school.
The Moderator said this Thursday, January 20, 2022, when he visited RIIS Presby “B” Basic School where close to 400 students have been displaced after their classroom blocks were reclaimed by the local congregation of the Church for office facility.
The visit by the Moderator and his entourage was to assess the challenges on grounds and help fix them in both the short and long term.
The spokesperson for the Presbyterian Church of Ghana Rev.George Larbi told the media that, the Moderator was worried after hearing the unfortunate development hence the decision to personally visit the school.
He said the Moderator promised that the church will in immediate term construct a four-unit pavilion classroom block expected to be completed before the end of March this year to reverse the shift system being implemented as a stopgap measure.
He said, in the long term the Church will covert the pavilion into a complete classroom block facility if the need arises.
Background
Ascension Congregation of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana in Koforidua evicted the Junior High School students of RIIS Presbyterian Basic “B” school from a building that was being used as classrooms.
The building was released to the school by the church for temporal use as classrooms for the Junior High School students about seven years ago however the government has failed to construct a permanent classroom for the school.
A GETFUND project started by former MP Dr Mark Asibey Yeboah has been abandoned for years.
The church, therefore lost patience hence has reclaimed the building displacing the students
Teachers and the displaced JHS students resumed school Tuesday, January 18, 2021, only to see their classrooms being converted into office accommodation with the desks removed outside.
Nana Yaw Debrah Assembly Member for Asuofiri electoral area where the school is situated said the situation is worrying.
“We got here in the morning around 6:30 am, when we came there was some ongoing renovation works on one of the school building blocks.
The issue is that the church offered the building to the school for temporal use, but now the time period seems to expire so the church now wants to occupy the building back.
RIIS school has been categorized into three, that is A, B and C but the issue was specifically pertaining to B and so the block was being occupied by the B junior high students”
The Assembly Member continued “but now that the church wants to occupy the building back, then it means that these children will be forced to sit under the tree or study under the sun, but this will affect the children academics because they need a serene and friendly environment with sound minds to learn as children.
This is the more reason why there are a lot of officials from GES storming the school premises to urgently plan to find a place for these children. It is always hard to complete the syllabus so the introduction of the shift system will make it even more difficult for most teachers to complete the syllabus”.
As an emergency measure, the management of RIIS Presby ” B” Basic School and Ghana Education Service has reintroduced a shift system for the lower primary to enable the JHS students to improvise their classrooms.
But the assembly member is worried “With the shift system, the students will enjoy a maximum of two to three hours in school including break time and other activities, but when they are together without the shift system they will have to spend more than three hours and this will not help us to achieve our objectives.
This will be a disadvantage to the school and also the municipality as well, so who then should be blamed if the school produce bad results”.
The New Juaben South Municipal Director of Education Victor Degraft Etsison told the media, the emergency measure rolled out is not a reintroduction of the shift system.
He said it is temporal arrangements to improvise the lower primary classroom facilities to enable the JHS students to get classrooms for uninterrupted learning as the final years prepare for BECE.
The Municipal Education Director however appealed to GETFUND to complete an abandoned classroom block project in the school.
Source: Mybrytnewsroom.com/Obed Ansah
