Students trek 16km daily to school in Nanumba district

Junior High School (JHS) pupils in some communities in the Nanumba North District of the Northern Region, trek about 16 kilometers daily to attend school.

The communities do not have any JHS, hence the long distance trekking, which community leaders and parents say was affecting the educational standards in those areas.

Mr. Issahaku Iddrisu, Head teacher of the Juo Primary school complaining to the press during a tour of the area on Monday, said all the pupils, who completed primary school in Juo, Juasheiyila and Salinayila communities, journeyed to Bimbilla for their JHS, a distance of about 20km.

He said the only primary school in the Juo community was built in the 1989 with only three classrooms until the intervention of ActionAid Ghana and Songtaba both NGOs, which provided them with additional three-unit classroom block.

Mr. Iddrisu explained that the community had been provided with a Junior High School only on paper and appealed to the government and NGOs to come to their aid.

He said parents, who could afford, had sent their wards to stay in the Bimbilla township to attend school, a situation he noted does not auger well for the positive and holistic development of the children.

The head teacher complained that due to the poverty situation in the affected villages, some parents could not continue to bear the additional expenses they had to incur, resulting in school dropouts.

The press team saw pupils riding bicycles from the Bimbilla town after traveling for 10 miles from the Karaga community, a village in the Numba North community for their JHS lessons.

Master Tigaani Mabadan, an 18-year pupil, said they had been traveling 10 miles daily for school. “We get tired after arrival and find it stressful to concentrate during lessons,” he said.

He said they were about 50 students in that community who travel to school in Bimbilla, adding “When it is raining, we do not go to school”.

Source: GNA