Teachers and school children of the Diare Alhuseinia E/A primary school in the Savelugu Municipality live in constant fear due to rampant killing of snakes in the premises.
Mr Deishini Abdallah, Headmaster of the school disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA) during a visit to the community to assess the plight of rural education.
He said three snakes had been killed in the school’s premises in a period of short intervals, which was a worry to authorities and affected teaching and learning and attributed the invasion of the snakes to the dilapidated nature of the school and called for urgent attention for infrastructural improvement.
He explained that tuition was taking place in a mud buildings, which were thatched-roofed making it attractive for reptiles and appealed to the Savulugu Municipal Assembly to consider completing an abandoned school building project to enhance academic work.
He explained that they lived in constant fear of being bitten by the snakes, adding that, their constant appearance was a source of worry for both teachers and pupils and described the incidences as devastating.
“We were in a class learning and all of a sudden, we heard the children screaming and running helter-skelter when a snake entered one of the classes, but the teachers managed to kill it”, he said.
He said as a headmaster, he was devastated and frightened because anything could have happened to them and indicated that some of the pupils who had no access to furniture sit on the floor to learn and write while others learnt under trees.
The school had no teaching and learning materials to enhance work and stressed the need for authorities to pay equal attention to rural education.
Mr Deishini also expressed worry about the rate at which children dropped out of school due to the poor conditions of the school infrastructure and revealed that the school was compelled to end lessons when there were signs of rainfall because of lack of infrastructure.
He stressed the need for the completion of the school building to motivate parents in the community to enrol their children and appealed to the government to motivate teachers in the rural communities to improve rural education.
Source: GNA | Ghana