Educational stakeholders in Nkwanta South advocate for infrastructure dev’t

The substandard infrastructure in most schools, according to educational stakeholders and chairpersons for the Inter Basic School Federation Reading Festival in the Nkwanta South of the Oti Region, hinders effective teaching and learning and affects students’ academic achievement.

They told Adom News in an interview that this, along with the absence of furniture, classrooms, and other teaching and learning resources, were inhibiting the effective delivery of courses and causing pupils’ performance on national exams to suffer.

The chairman of the Nkwanta South Municipal Inter-Federation Reading Committee, Bernard Kwame Ahortor, attributed the area’s schools’ poor performance to a lack of infrastructure. Many of the schools lack furniture, forcing students and pupils to sit on stools or the bare floor while others lie on the floor to study.

When the Nkwanta South Municipal Education Directorate organized the Supper Spellers Readers Competition for students in Nkwanta South basic schools to spark their interest in reading, he let everyone know about it.

Nkwanta East, Salifu, Breweniase Federation, Bonakye South and North Federation, and Nkwanta West, Kechiebi, and Tutukpene Federation are the federations that make up the municipality’s school system.

“Learn to Read, Read to Learn” is the motto for the tournament.

In order to address the issue and assist restore the municipality’s declining educational standards, he consequently made a plea to the government and other interested parties.

Jonathan Korsinah, the Municipal Education Director for Nkwanta South, recognized that the reading festival will increase the children’s enthusiasm in reading and urged parents to also do their part to improve the education system.

He stated that it is their desire that children would learn to read from an early age, which will assist solve the problem of exam fraud in the future.

In order to encourage parents to take an active role in their children’s education and provide their fundamental requirements, the directorate made an appeal to parents.

Zion Yeboah, the chairman of the Nkwanta East Salifu and Breweniase Federation, and some of the candidates who took home trophies and medals for winning the competition, expressed their happiness at taking part in the activity and pledged to do better in the directorate’s next reading contests.

They reaffirmed the necessity for the government to address the infrastructural problems and find long-term solutions to the problems hurting the region’s academic performance.