Scene from the collapsed school a few days ago
A couple of days ago the heart-wrenching story of the death of six kids through the collapsing of their dilapidated classroom in the Central Region made the headlines.
The story expectedly drew massive empathy from a cross-section of parents, some of who especially stopped short of shedding tears; the pathetic case of one mother losing two children in the accident especially standing apart.
When such an avoidable development is recorded especially involving innocent children, indeed minors, shedding tears and querying successive political establishments for their seeming negligence is sequential.
Governments have come and gone, each promising goodies in the critical areas of life including, of course, education, health and the economy.
Does it not demand a reprimand of those in whose trust the task of ensuring the provision of the foregone was put by the people?
District assemblies, especially, have a critical role in ensuring that schools in their areas of jurisdiction are properly fitted with the necessary infrastructure and not death traps as in the case of the killer structure under review.
We have noted the visit to the school and the community where the mishap took place by the Education Minister, who was ordered by his boss President Nana Akufo-Addo to proceed to the accident scene without hesitation. While we are happy that the Education Minister who is in the process of learning the ropes of his new office visited the bereaved families and assessed the situation, we nonetheless ask that he questions why it happened and who did not do his work satisfactorily leading to the unfortunate death of the little ones and how to forestall a future recurrence.
A probe of sorts would be necessary at this stage to deal with the foregone questions, lest a repeat is recorded elsewhere in the country. We would not countenance any attempts at glossing over this dark date in our education calendar.
In some dispensations, some officials whose work relates the maintenance of schools should have resigned their appointments. In the absence of that, we think that people whose negligence led to the death of the innocent ones should be compelled to exit their positions. Not doing anything in that direction cannot be an option, given the magnitude of the occurrence.
We are told that the cracks in the eighty-year-old structure were not hidden and which, had officials responsible for ensuring the welfare of the kids in the school been on top of their jobs, should have been mended. No, the structure was too old to be allowed to function as a school block and therefore should have been rebuilt.
If such officials pass the buck to another set of officials, these must be dealt with also appropriately. It would appear that the district director of education has some questions to answer for the avoidable fatalities.
We share the pain of the parents and families who have had to endure the pain of losing these kids and assure them that we stand shoulder to shoulder with them in demanding better stewardship from those entrusted with the responsibility and for appropriate sanctions against whose non-performance led to the fatalities.