Many public basic schools in Ghana continue to face a myriad of challenges.
Aside from the issue of infrastructure, access to educational materials such as exercise books remain a luxury for some.
Many school authorities have lamented about how this has led to absenteeism in some instances. They say this puts them in a delicate position where they are unable to drive such students home since the parents of such students do not have the money to buy the books for them.
Authorities of the Kaase MA basic school for instance corroborate this claim.
The headmistress of the Kaase MA Primary, and KG, Rita Dela was thus full of praise for the management of the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited (BOST) when they supported them with some needed educational materials after learning of the challenges the students were facing.
“Exercise books and other things have been a big challenge in our school here. Some of our children are from broken homes and I can say that ever since school reopened, they haven’t gotten books to write in. You cannot use that as a yardstick to drive a child home because of course he doesn’t take care of himself, these are bought for the child by parents. So, if you push the parents, and they are not doing it, you have to hold on.”
“So, today BOST coming to our aid and giving us these 5000 exercise books, it’s really a relief I can say because these children are going to get these books. They have received it and are so happy to get these books to write in. I think it will encourage them to come to school quite often and with all the joy of coming to school because at the end of the day, you are assigned to write in a book so what they have done today, we are really grateful”.
The Government Relations, Corporate Social Responsibility and Protocol Manager at BOST, Yaw Antwi Dadzie said since the school is located within the company’s operational area, they decided to help address some of the challenges confronting them.
“We did an assessment for all our impacted communities that surround our depots and our infrastructure, and this is a one hundred thousand exercise book donation project. We are donating to all our impacted community schools”.
Yaw Antwi Dadzie further added that as part of its corporate social responsibility, BOST has set aside 1.5 million dollars as a four-year scholarship scheme for 50 students who are currently studying at the University of Mines and Technology (UMAT).