National Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential hopeful Dr. Kwabena Duffuor has moved to support the renovation of a dilapidated basic school in the Anloga district of the Volta region.
The humanitarian gesture is in line with his ‘Ghanaian Dream’ of seeing every child in the country go to school under the best learning and teaching conditions.
The former Minister for Finance under the John Evans Atta Mills government is supporting the school through his charity wing, Duffuor Foundation, in partnership with the Livingstone Foundation.
It is a private partnership to renovate the dilapidated school in fulfilment of their shared belief in supporting children’s education at the basic level.
Dr. Duffuor, a business mogul went on a road trip to the facility last Friday where he expressed shock at the deplorable state of the school’s facilities.
He pledged to immediately contribute to give the school a face-lift to enhance teaching and learning.
The ramshackle Trekume basic school, which serves about seven different communities including Tregui, Trekume, Dosukope, Blemezado, Azanu among others, has not been renovated since its establishment more than 30 years ago.
The school has a growing population of about 350 pupils but with the existing deplorable structures, the students now share the compound with wild birds and other rodents because parts of the floors and walls have developed deep cracks and the partly ripped off windows and roofs cannot allow teaching and learning during the rains.
Appeal
Dr. Duffuor’s timely intervention came in response to appeals from Headmaster of the school, Mr. Isaac Boni who rang the alarm bells that the school’s infrastructural situation is a looming disaster even as it negatively affects the current academic performance of the pupils.
“We are not happy with what we have seen here. Our children should have a more decent environment to stay in and learn and I think we can change this situation – it must be done”, Dr. Duffuor told the community at a ground-breaking ceremony to start renovations and repair work on the school.
The former Bank of Ghana (BoG) Governor explained that the initiative falls in line with his Ghanaian Dream vision which aims at giving equal opportunities to the Ghanaian people in every aspect of our lives including the right to quality education.
“We are reminding ourselves that the situation we have seen today is deplorable and something must be done about it. The Ghanaian Dream means that everyone must be given equal opportunities; we have children staying in air-conditioned classrooms somewhere in Ghana here and we have our children in dilapidated classrooms here (Trekume basic school) but they will be taking the same exams. How will these children here achieve the same results as those in the nice environments,” Dr. Duffuor questioned rhetorically.
Repair work on the 6-unit primary classroom block, another 3-unit JHS block will be completed within one year from now.
In addition to the repair works, new ancillary facilities will also be added to the school to make it a state-of-the-art facility.
Presidential ambition
Dr. Duffuor, a leading member of the opposition NDC is lacing his boot for the NDC 2024 flagbearer contest, hopefully early next year.
He recently came up with another private initiative dubbed the “Ahotɔ Project”, which is meant to financially empower and bring relief to NDC footsoldiers and party executives in all 275 constituencies across the country as part of his bigger vision of a “Ghanaian Dream”.
The initiative, according to the Ahotɔ Project Team, “is a direct response to the recommendations of a business feasibility studies commissioned by Dr Duffuor and carried out by a team across the country”.
“It was to establish the most feasible and sustainable business idea capable of helping to finance the NDC party activities at the local level”, the team stated.
Dr. Duffuor has bemoaned the present situation where the responsibility of raising resources for grassroots activities of the NDC is left in the hands of branch and constituency executives whose work for the party is purely voluntary and overburdened MPs.
This, he noted, is affecting their personal businesses and families, and not a sustainable way for financing a modern-day political organisation.
