Education Crisis at Sabonjida D/A Basic School Threatens Future of Pupils

At Sabonjida D/A Basic School in the Tatale-Sangule District of the Northern Region, education is seen as a privilege rather than a right. The school is grappling with severe challenges, including a lack of trained teachers and inadequate infrastructure, leaving its pupils with limited opportunities for success.

The school currently has only two trained teachers who manage Kindergarten 1 through Basic 6, and the rest of the teaching is reliant on untrained volunteer teachers. Among these volunteers is Thomas Bignangma, a Senior High School graduate, who has stepped in to help. While his commitment is admirable, his lack of professional training has led to significant challenges in the classroom.

In one particularly concerning session, an entire letter of the alphabet – the letter ‘L’ – was missing from the blackboard. Worse still, students were taught to pronounce the letters ‘M’ and ‘N’ in the same way, and they confidently repeated these errors.

“The thing I’m teaching them, they don’t have a problem again. They know how to say it,” Bignangma said, though struggling to explain his teaching methods.

The lack of proper instruction has serious implications for the children’s learning outcomes, with many being set up for failure from the start.

In addition to the teacher shortage, the school is facing significant infrastructural challenges. With only three classrooms, multiple grade levels are forced to share spaces, hindering effective teaching and learning. The head teacher, Francis Gangam, expressed the difficulty of managing the school with limited resources.

“We are only two teachers handling KG1 to Basic Six. It’s difficult. We have volunteers helping, but they are not professional teachers,” Gangam said.

The school’s youngest learners, in particular, are being taught in a makeshift classroom – a fenced area with concrete blocks, originally intended for a construction project, serving as furniture. These blocks were moulded in 2020 during the campaign of former District Chief Executive (DCE) Thomas Mbomba, who had promised to build classrooms. However, after winning the election, the promised classrooms were never constructed, leaving the children to suffer in inadequate conditions.

“The MP promised to build classrooms, but after he won, he never came back. Now the blocks are spoiling, and the children are suffering,” Gangam lamented.

Beyond the classroom challenges, Sabonjida D/A Basic School is also excluded from the national school feeding programme. As a result, pupils must walk home for meals during break time, leading to frequent absenteeism as many children do not return to school after their break.

“The children go home for food during break time. Most of them don’t come back. It’s affecting their learning,” explained Assembly member John Nabei Nmongna.

Despite these ongoing struggles, the community is determined not to let the school collapse. Parents have resorted to an unconventional solution by offering labor on their farms as payment for the volunteer teachers’ services.

“I’m helping because there’s no teacher. The parents work on my farm to support me so I can keep teaching,” Bignangma said.

However, this arrangement is not sustainable. The school urgently requires trained teachers, better infrastructure, and inclusion in the school feeding programme to ensure that students receive a proper education.

Community leaders and educators are calling on the government for immediate intervention.

“These children are our future leaders. How can they achieve anything if we continue to fail them like this?” Gangam questioned.

The situation at Sabonjida D/A Basic School highlights the stark educational inequalities in rural Ghana. Without prompt action, an entire generation of children could be left behind, their prospects of a better future slipping further away.

This crisis serves as a call to action for policymakers to prioritize schools like Sabonjida before it is too late.