The Headmistress of Ebenezer Senior High School, Ms Anastasia Afua Konadu
The Headmistress of Ebenezer Senior High School, Ms Anastasia Afua Konadu, has appealed to the givernment to re-award some abandoned infrastructural projects in the school for new contracts to ensure they are completed.
One such project is a stalled seven-unit classroom block, which started a decade ago.
The classroom block, funded by the GetFund, and 80 per cent complete had stalled due to the death of the contractor working on the project.
Ms Konadu was speaking in an interview with the Ghana News Agency, on the side-lines of a handing over of a renovated classroom and the launch of the 40th Anniversary and Homecoming Ceremony of the 1982-Padua Old Students Association Year Group in Accra.
She said the government must take immediate steps to ensure that the classroom block was completed.
She said the school was bedeviled with several uncompleted projects, which were taking a toll on academic work.
Ms Konadu said the situation had exacerbated in recent times because of the fading out of the double-track system.
She added that this had compelled management to convert the uncompleted seven-unit block into a classroom to manage the ever-growing student population to avoid overcrowding and ensure effective academic work.
“We lack infrastructure and that is the fact of the matter, especially classrooms. We have a seven-unit classroom block there, which is uncompleted but as I am speaking to you, we are forced to put students in it and when they are there and it rains, or the sun shines, it is an eyesore.
“Information I gathered indicates that the contractor working on it has passed on, but we cannot let it be there. It is about 80 per cent complete, so we are appealing to government to re-award it to a different contractor for it to be completed,” the Headmistress emphasized.
Established in 1941, the school currently has a population of more than 1,700 students.
Other projects including a girls' dormitory which commenced in 2008 and a science and ICT laboratories, started in 2016, have all stalled for years.
Ms Konadu attributed the school's deficient performance at national inter-schools' competitions such as the National Science and Maths Quiz to the lack of boarding facilities to house and train and prepare students ahead of such competitions.
She said completing the dormitory and converting the school from a day to a boarding one would not only improve academic performance of the school but also increase its enrolment by accommodating more students.
She, therefore, appealed to the Government, corporate organisations, benevolent individuals, as well as old students to help fast-track the completion of these stalled projects.
“If you look at Dansoman area, Ablekuma West Constituency, we have just two secondary schools for the public. If you look at the two, it is only Ebenezer who has the land for future expansion,” the Headmistress noted.
She added that: “If we want to enroll more students, then I will urge that the stakeholders come to the aid of Ebenezer SHS by completing the uncompleted structures and help us with a boarding status, so that many students who are not getting opportunities in the Category A schools can equally come here and be trained.”