Former Minister of Finance Dr Kwabena Duffuor has described as nothing short of sordid reports that students of Ghana Senior High School use toilets as dormitories as a result of inadequate facilities.
A viral video captured the situation in the Tamale-based school, forcing the Ghana Education Service (GES) to sanction the Headmaster and the Senior Housemaster.
The two officials have been asked to step aside for investigations to be conducted into the matter.
The school’s authorities as well as the Old Students Association have denied this, claiming the journalist only misconstrued the keeping of chop boxes and trunks in the “cubicles”.
Weighing into the discourse, Dr Duffuor recalled that when he was the Finance Minister, under the Presidency of Professor John Evans Atta Mills, they worked tirelessly to deploy resources to the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund).
He said this was “to conscientiously provide a deluge of boarding facilities for existing schools, and also constructed new schools with such facilities”.
He is, therefore, concerned that as the desire to provide the country’s children a free education is burning, “we must conscientiously also ensure that our children acquire education in dignity”.
Agreeing with the decision by the GES to sanction investigations by asking the two officials of the school to step aside, Dr Duffuor also called on policy makers to work to ensure that adequate facilities are provided “to support the educational transformation process”.
“Our beloved Motherland is the only country we have so let us work together to build the Better Ghana we all desire and deserve.”