We are working with a wide range of schools, but we are doing more intensive work with 8 schools. One of these is Wa Model Primary School, which is the most "privileged" school that we have visited. You will see in the pictures that there are solid school buildings, an electricity supply and a water supply on site, and the pupils are wearing shoes. In addition, most classes have 50/60 pupils, which is a comparatively small class size for this region.
Many primary school children in Ghana wear a brown and yellow uniform, and you will see that many of them are wearing coats and jackets over their uniform, as it is now the dry (cold!) season. This school is called Wa “model” school, because it was the first school ever to be built in Wa. This was in the early 70s, and it was seen as a model for other school buildings.
There are over 800 pupils in the school and they arrive at school at approximately 6.30 a.m. They all have cleaning duties that are carried out amazingly enthusiastically before the school day begins. Brushes made of sticks are used to sweep up leaves and rubbish.
Classrooms are also swept out.
All leaves and rubbish are collected in a bin and then taken to the rubbish dump on the perimeter of the school.
Water collection is an important job for pupils. The water is stored in 3 barrels in the central part of the school. A few plastic cups are kept with the barrels and all pupils use these cups when they are thirsty.
Five women from the local community come onto the school site from 6.30 a.m. onwards to sell food to the pupils. This food is very reasonably priced and quite a number of the pupils buy it. They can buy pieces of fruit, some nuts or a bowl of rice with some stew. The women who sell the food have all been medically checked to ensure that they don’t have any long-term illnesses.
The pupils are very well behaved and there are excellent relationships among them. The older pupils act as prefects to ensure that everyone behaves during the consumption of the food.
At 7.15 a.m., one pupil has responsibility for ringing the bell
At this point all pupils line up in their classes around the flag of Ghana. This is all very precise and they have to organise themselves, so that they are standing up straight at arm’s length from the pupil in front.
The assembly starts with a prayer, followed by all pupils and staff with arm across the chest, reciting the Ghana pledge and then singing the national anthem. This is taken very seriously indeed. At this point, information is given to the pupils or sometimes the pupils themselves talk to their peers. Pupils leave the assembly, class by class, marching and singing the school song: “...we are all involved in making our country strong........” They all engage in this very enthusiastically and sing their hearts out.
All the marching takes places to the beat of drums that are played by pupils – always boys. (We haven’t tackled that one yet!)
Marching is a very popular activity in all the schools and there are annual marching competitions. Wa Model Primary has won a prize every year in recent times.
Lessons begin at 7.45 a.m. and there are 8 lessons each day. Each class teacher takes all the subjects. The centrally-prescribed curriculum is made up of English, maths, Ghanaian language (Dagaare), citizenship education, integrated science, creative arts, religious and moral education, and ICT. The picture below shows a year 5 class.
The year of the class bears no relationship to the age of the students. It represents the number of years they have been in school. Therefore, there are pupils up to the age of 18 in the primary school. All text books are provided by the school, but even this school is very short of books. All exercise books, pens, pencils etc. have to be provided by the pupils.
There is a 20 minute break at 10.30 a.m., when pupils can still buy food from the food sellers. School ends at 1.30 p.m. There is no food provided free for pupils, and this is a major issue for the poorer pupils who have to go for the whole day without anything to eat.
We haven’t been anywhere that is goat-free. The goats even attend the schools:
Having a picture taken is a real novelty – even for the teachers, who insisted on having their picture taken as well.
