The menace of illegal small-scale mining, otherwise known as galamsey, has become a national issue because successive governments have failed to stop it.
The menace currently seems to be getting worse by the minute.
Not only is galamsey destroying land and water bodies in Ghana and depriving the country of the needed revenue for its development, but it is also denying the country the needed human resources.
Many students in galamsey areas have dropped out of school to engage in the menace, leaving basic schools and senior high schools virtually empty.
Aside from the students, teachers and other professionals have started leaving their jobs to become illegal small-scale miners (galamsey) because of the high earnings, which is reported to be between GH¢300 to GH¢500 per day.
One such teacher is the headmaster of Christ the King School in Donkorkrom, a suburb of Prestea-Huni in the Western Region, which is predominately a cocoa community.
In an interview with TV3, which was monitored by GhanaWeb, the headmaster, whose name was withheld, said that he quit his job for illegal small-scale mining to make a decent leaving.
Aside from being the headmaster, he said that he was the only teacher in the school and he was in charge of seven classes.
According to him, he had to shuffle between the seven classes daily, which was no mean task.
If spite of all the trouble he went through, he earned very little, even less than some of the school children who were illegal miners, which made it very difficult for him to control them.
The former headmaster indicated that all these challenges, coupled with the fact that he had to take care of his family, forced him to quit his teaching job.
“I was the headmaster of Christ the King but I had to leave to do galamsey because I was having a lot of financial challenges.
“I was having difficulties taking the school fee from the children and I also had to take care of my family. So, things were a bit difficult for me so I had to leave and I’m now into illegal mining,” he told TV3 in Twi dialect.
You can also watch this episode of People & Places on GhanaWeb TV:
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