300 C.K Kope school children need support
Elsewhere in this edition, we have published a story about the challenges 300 school children face daily in attending school at C.K Korpe in Tapa Abotoase in the Biakoye District of the Oti Region.
According to the story, over 300 school children from C.K Korpe and surrounding island communities in the Biakoye District in the Oti Region risk their lives daily crossing the Volta Lake to access education in Tapa Abotoase due to lack of school in those communities.
To make matters worse, the children are crowded in the canoe on daily basis by the owner without life jackets.
The story alleges that the canoe owner cramp the children in the canoe to avoid ferrying them across the river several times because the “ride” is free. Not only that, the distance from the village to the school will not allow the canoes make several trips to the school in a day.
When the Ghanaian Times correspondent visited the area yesterday, it was revealed to him that more than three school children lose their lives every year crossing the river due to overcrowding on the canoes used in transporting them.
Although we cannot independently verify this information, we nonetheless feel sad for the children living in and around the communities going through the challenges to access education.
We sympathise with their parents and call on the community leaders, the District Assemblies as well as the District Directorate to get together to find solution to the problem.
We commend Torgbe Bubune Xornametor I, a philanthropist and founder of Xornametor Foundation, an NGO, donating GH¢10,000.00 to the community to construct a three-unit pavilion for C.K Korpe community to start a school for the children to save them from perilous canoe journeys every morning.
Obviously, this is going to go a long way to ease the situation but not going to solve it entirely. It is against this backdrop that we appeal to the government to address some challenges facing children in deprived communities across the country.
We are aware that the Ministry of Education has embarked on infrastructural development for some schools in the country and also aware that the country cannot develop or build schools in all communities in one go but some deprived areas with peculiar challenges deserve attention and C.K Kope is one such community.
We hope that as promised, the Biakoye District Chief Executive (DCE), Ms Millicent Kabuki Carboo, and all stakeholders will come together to find a lasting solution to the challenges faced by the school children.
