You would be lucky to find up to ten teachers in schools across districts in rural Ghana.
And that is not only because teachers are in short supply but primarily because of poor education outcomes.
Apart from poor planning and policy gaps that make an already poor situation very worse, infrastructure deficit is also too high.
Kwame Mensah is a 36-year old teacher who is looking beyond all the glaring challenges to help his rural pupils.
But as the head teacher of the Lonpe MA Primary School, the burden is even way higher.
He would have to travel across an incredibly long distance to be in school on time. But howw he manages to get to school when his means of transport is unavailable, like when his motorbike broke down one certain day, it is a story to behold.
After a nine (9) kilometre ride offered him by a good samaritan who was returning from hospital with his wife, he would have had to swim across a river Dakar — and then continue for (3) three more kilometres.
These adversities coupled with poor infrastructure and lack of furniture and textbooks makes this even more dire.
Kwame Mensah’s connection with rural schools begun when he completed college in 2009 and has since moved from one school to another and admits, teaching here is very frustrating as it is dangerous.
“Teaching in rural communities is not an easy task especially as I have to swim across a river everyday to get to my school. My family is very very worried”
“The students are at a huge disadvantage because I have to teach all the classes from basic one to six and this is very stressful”
Education watchers have maintained the uneven distribution of school resources between the urban and rural areas and the ultimate outcomes require a decent review.
The Executive director of Africa Education Watch – Ghana, Kofi Asare has been doing a lot of work in this regard.
He believes the time is now to demand a concrete action on rural education if something is to change.
A recent survey, conducted by his organization, Edu Watch reveal more than 42,000 teachers left the profession in 2021 alone.
Data from Social Education Research (SER) further also indicates, at least ten thousand (10,000) teachers leave the classroom every year to seek other job opportunities.
The situation continues to impact the teacher and the pupils especially in the rural communities.
As Ghana seeks to achieve zero (0) hunger among other SDGs, government reforms must also consider the plight of the rural teachers.
Until then things would remain dire and even deteriorate way further.
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