Mr Kwame Dzudzorli Gakpey, Member of Parliament (MP) for Keta, and Mr Wisdom Seade, Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), have handed over about 4,000 pieces of school furniture to the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Keta Municipality of the Volta Region, to improve teaching and learning.
The furniture, comprising mono and dual desks as well as hexagonal tables, is expected to be distributed to various basic schools across the municipality to provide learners and teachers with a more conducive environment for effective teaching and learning.
The intervention was also intended to address furniture shortages in schools and ensure that pupils have appropriate seating and writing facilities to enhance their academic performance and access to quality education.
Mr Gakpey, speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, said the initiative was funded through the government’s Common Fund allocation, part of which had been used to procure tables and chairs for pupils to support their educational development.
He said that the provision of the furniture was necessary, particularly after the construction and commissioning of classroom blocks in the municipality, and that the absence of desks could undermine efforts to improve educational infrastructure.
“We don’t want to see or hear any situation that after we have commissioned various classroom blocks in the municipality, learners will still sit on stones or lie on the ground to write due to lack of furniture,” he said.
Mr Gakpey emphasised that the ultimate objective was to ensure that teachers and learners in the municipality enjoyed a peaceful and comfortable learning environment that would enable them to access quality education comparable to what was available in urban centres.
He appealed to beneficiary schools to take proper care of the furniture and cultivate a maintenance culture, including repairing damaged desks and tables, to ensure their longevity and maximise the benefits of the intervention.
Mr Seade said the dual desks were expected to accommodate about 1,000 upper-primary pupils, while the hexagonal tables would serve approximately 3,000 kindergarten pupils and children up to Primary Two.
He explained that the distribution would be coordinated by the Keta Municipal Directorate of Education, using requests submitted by various schools indicating their furniture needs to ensure that the items reached the intended beneficiaries.
Mr Seade urged parents to ensure that all children of school-going age must be enrolled in school and take advantage of the available educational facilities and warned that the Assembly would enact a by-law to address cases of parents who failed to send their children to school.
“Let me commend President John Dramani Mahama for providing the Common Fund allocation to support development activities across our municipality as well as the entire country.”
Mr Raphael Mawuko Amenyo, Keta Municipal Director of Education, who received the furniture on behalf of the schools, expressed appreciation to the government, the MP and the MCE for the collaborative intervention which would contribute significantly to improving teaching and learning.
However, he raised concerns about teacher shortages in the municipality and revealed that Keta had received only two teachers for its basic schools during the latest recruitment exercise.
He appealed to the government to post at least 100 teachers, out of an estimated requirement of 225, to help address the deficit and strengthen basic education delivery in the area.