Full video via this link
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| Henking A. Adjase-Kodjo, the writer |
To
the chiefs and people of Odumase-Krobo, particularly the staff and students of
the Presbyterian Junior High School (the school that was left to rot), the name
Zain, will forever remain synonymous with salvation and relief because what all
others have failed or refused to do, Zain has done.
Just
when hope was getting lost because the authorities were shirking their
responsibility and virtually running away from what they were mandated to do
and with no rescuer in sight, Zain came from nowhere to restore smile on the
faces of the visibly hopeless tutors and pupils of the 1888-built school; the
school had been left for a long time to rot, injure and kill.
All,
even those whose mandate it was to ensure that the building was fit for human
habitation and, for that matter, academic exercise fled in the face of the
worsening condition, leaving the teachers and pupils like “orphans”. But Zain
did not. It is, therefore not for nothing that the name Zain has gained
acceptance in the Odumase township and beyond.
At
least if for nothing at all, their prompt response to the distress call of the
school within a day has succeeded in averting a worse form of the earlier recorded
disaster. This has shown that they are not only in the country for business,
just like others, but to improve the lots of the people.
But
for the rescue mission, the news of the impending rainy season would be a bad
one for the “orphaned” teachers and pupils because it would worsen their
plight.
I am
very sure if they had the power, they would have suspended the season and, for
that matter, the rains but they had no such power so they resigned themselves
to fate only hoping that nothing disastrous happened.
If at
the hands of mere showers that preceded the season, parts of the roof of the
colonial edifice kept flying off, to the extent of snuffing life out of one student
and injuring many others, one can imagine what would have become of the
building, the pupils and teachers during and after the heavy rains of this
season as has already been predicted by the Meteorological Service not too long
ago.
We
needed no consultation to arrive at the conclusion that a great but preventable
disaster was looming. I am firm in the belief that other schools in other parts
of the country are in similar or worse conditions.
If
in the heart of a town like Odumase-Krobo, which is very close to the capital
city, we still find crumbling schools buildings like this, one can guess with
certainty the nature of school building in the “remote” parts of the country.
How long should we continue to toy with risky situations like this?
Some
things can be toyed with, if we so want, but not when human lives which we
neither can create nor restore are involved and more so when one has already
been lost as a signal that more were going to be lost.
Is
this the kind of free, compulsory but quality basic education government keeps
boating of? Why then should it be compulsory if children have to face
life-threatening conditions to access it and die in the process? What would the
benefit be to come to school only to be struck dead by a collapsing school
building?
I
shudder to think that the deceased, Bernard Narteh, has been dispatched to
eternity prematurely and for this reason the authorities responsible for the mismanagement
of the schools must be taken on for negligence of duty. Negligence because the
building started showing signs of imminent collapse long ago and yet the
authorities simply refused to act. This is where or disregard for maintenance
has brought us.
Could
it be that those whose mandate it was and still is to ensure the safety of the
people (pupils and teachers) and the provision of a conducive environment for
academic activities simply refused to do so because they are not directly
affected in any way or the condition of the school had not been brought to
their attention?
Was
it a case of lack of finance, the usual refrain, and if so, what prevented them
from taking initiatives? Am I being made to believe that “communal labour”
which has been very effective in arresting situations like this has outlived
its usefulness?
Was
it that the stakeholders were too many and their roles not properly defined for
which reason they shirked their responsibility? And who at all is directly responsible
for the management of public-mission schools like the one in question- Odumase
Presby Junior High School? Because one of the identified causes of the
abandonment is “who has what
responsibility to do what?”
Is
it the government, the mission/church or the Parent-Teacher-Association? Some
may even argue that the old students have a role to play. Is there a clear definition
of who does what? If there is, then the identified authority must be held
responsible.
While
the government, for that matter, the District Assembly and the Ghana Education
Service (GES) seem to be too busy with “more important issues”, the church has
also almost withdrawn, playing a passive role in the management of the school.
I
very much believe that the church has withdrawn because the school is “public”,
otherwise what reason can the Presby Education Unit (PEU) the Presby Education
Foundation (PEF) and the Dangme-Tongu Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of
Ghana (PCG) assign for not responding to the distress call of the school”
Anyway,
where was the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO)? What did it do
about what happened? Why the silence even when they had fully been made aware
of the disaster?
Would
I be wrong to think that what happened was not disasterous enough for them to
manage? Perhaps, disaster to them is better managed on a large scale and not
when only three people are injured and a single life lost.
Thank
God, the management of Zain has been touched by the plight of the school and is
hurriedly putting up a befitting classroom block with a library and a computer laboratory
in place of that “death trap”. But the question is, what of other schools in the
same and similar conditions?
Zain
certainly cannot do all and that is why the government must sit up and
prioritise properly, otherwise the very essence of the laudable interventions such
as the Capitation Grant, School Feeding Programme, free school uniforms and the
others would all not be felt.
Of
what essence would it be for the children to attend school for free, be fed for
free but learn in crumbling school building only to die later because of the
faulty and abandoned school building?
We
have toyed with lives for far too long and so this must be a lesson. We done
Zain! This is a long-lasting investment that you have made and you will forever
be remembered for this philanthropy. You are really making the world a
wonderful place.
Daily Graphic, Monday June 22, 2009
Daily Graphic, Monday June 22, 2009
Watch full video via this link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLVH07UUu1k&list=UU7ljxYzKiZJZYmrQI8c0nLA
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