Jirapa best student now serving on farms after inability to pay for KNUST admission

Twenty-six-year-old Alex Kontondaba Lieyour, who graduated with aggregate 9 from the Lawra Senior High school, is yet to pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer two years after completion.

Alex, who completed school as the second-best in 2019, now goes around working for people to support his 75-year-old father to take care of his family as he couldn’t raise his fees when he was offered admission to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to pursue Actuarial Science.

The dream of Alex, who comes from a poor home in a remote community known as Tuolong in the Jirapa Municipality of the Upper West Region, to become a lawyer may remain a phantom until help comes from philanthropic organizations, individuals or the government.

Alex Kontondaba Lieyour [arrowed] is the eldest son of his family

Alex started his basic school education at the Tuolong Primary School but proceeded to have his junior high school in 2013 at Yagha, which is about 4 kilometres away due to lack of a JHS in Tuolong.

He completed Yagha JHS with an excellent grade.

Having completed with aggregate 9 in the 2016 BECE, Kontondaba Alex Lieyour became best in the Jirapa District then and was later given a citation by the District without any additional support to move forward.

He proceeded to Lawra Senior High School where he offered General Science and completed in 2019 again with another aggregate 9, making him second best after another person had aggregate 8.

Alex gained automatic admission to KNUST to offer MSc Actuarial Science but he could not go because he doesn’t have the money and the family headed by his 75-year-old father can’t also afford.

Two years on, Alex still remains at home due to the inability of his parents to support him financially to continue his education at the tertiary level.

His septuagenarian father and 46-year-old mother, who struggles to fend for their five children from their subsistence farming, do not have the financial wherewithal to sponsor the education of the brilliant chap to realize his dream of climbing high the academic ladder to become a lawyer.

Alex now goes to support farmers in order to raise money to support the family as their first child.

Alex together with his parents lives in a building constructed with mud with dried grass as the roof.

A recent downpour that hit many parts of the Upper West Region did not also spare the home of this poor family.

Some buildings of the house had already collapsed while the family had to support the main building with logs to prevent the building from a complete collapse during the rainy season.

No member of the family is a beneficiary of the Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty Program (LEAP).

Telecom network is very poor in this community, so to call Alex, one is required to send a text message to him, then wait for his call.

“When I began schooling, it seems it’s God’s gift. I must say nobody has ever overtaken me in my class. And at the JHS level, I was the Overall District Best Student and they gave me a citation with aggregate 9.”

Kontondaba Alex bemoaned his inability to get the needed financial support to further his education, stating that he sometimes even loses hope of climbing high the academic ladder as has always been his dream in life but he has no help forthcoming despite his good grades in WASSSCE.

He said 3 of his siblings have dropped out of school because of his situation.

He said his only hope now is to try and work to get money to go to teacher training college, where he can become a teacher.

He, therefore, made a passionate appeal to the government, individuals and organizations to come to his aid to enable him fulfil his dream of becoming a lawyer.