The Ghana News Agency (GNA) has reported that Basic and Junior High Schools (JHS) in the Gushegu Municipality of the Northern Region are faced with extreme furniture deficit, which is significantly affecting teaching and learning.

This was observed during a visit by a media team, led by the Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) in collaboration with the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund), to monitor the availability of desks in schools.

The team’s visit to schools including the Gushegu M/A Primary, Gushegu Demonstration, Maazijung Primary and JHS among others, saw pupils sitting on the floor during lessons while some stood.

In some schools, three or more pupils shared a desk meant for two while others laid on their bellies to write.

Meanwhile, GETFund, by 2023 distributed over 13,000 desks to basic schools across the country.

Out of these numbers, the Gushegu Municipality received 180 desks, which were distributed among 54 schools.

The furniture supply fell short of the demand of the schools as some schools with over 300 student-population, received four desks or less.

Mr Ahmed Tijani, Gushegu Municipal Director of Education, speaking to the media during the visit on Monday, said the furniture situation in the area was dire adding interventions to solve the problem were not sufficient.

He noted that the Municipality received 180 desks from GETFund, which were shared among all schools with some receiving only two pieces.

He said “In some schools, five students share a desk, and this is affecting their performance. It is badly affecting teaching and learning.”

He appealed to government, the Municipal Assembly and NGOs to supply the schools with furniture to provide an enabling learning condition for students.

The Daily Searchlight says;

This is happening at a time when the government is sinking billions of Ghana Cedis into the Free SHS Policy.

Even though the Free SHS Policy is laudable, its cost implications has meant that government has not been able to focus on other critical sectors of the educational ladder, such as pre-school, basic, junior high and tertiary.

It is one of the reasons why many people continue to advocate that the Free SHS Policy be reviewed.

One area needing critical review, is whether parents and guardians who have the means, should be allowed to contribute to their wards uptake at the secondary level.

We believe that allowing the parents to contribute would go a long way to save funds that can then be targeted at other areas of the education ladder in need of critical support.

Secondly, the time has arrived, for Ghana to conduct an in-depth philosophical study to arrive at what it wants to achieve with education in Ghana, and how that objective can be achieved.

Government pays for a large chunk of the public education system in Ghana. Even though it is admitted that Ghanaians are generally poor, we believe that charging parents token fees in the public sector would help ease some of the burden of education on government, and also improve the quality of education, particularly in the public sector.

Again, we believe that it is time government considered reducing its stranglehold on education and allowed other players to participate meaningfully. For instance, the concept of boarding schools and school placement, where parents must concede to government on whether and when their children should be educated, leads to pre-determined outcomes, which, as of now, remains bleak. A parent must be free to decide the best fortunes for his or her child, instead of being forced by the accident of being found in the jurisdiction of Ghana, to concede the child’s educational wellbeing to government.

If Ghana is to develop, it can only do so by unleashing the full potential of the people. This potential would not be determined on the single path controlled by government, politicians and bureaucrats.