The new canoe
Following a recent story published by DAILY GUIDE that the Akilika M/A Basic School in the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality of the Western Region has been closed down because of an alleged decision by the teachers to boycott classes, the Municipal Assembly has intervened.                                                                                                      The teachers, numbering about seven, took the decision to boycott classes for fear of losing their lives as the only means to the school daily was to cross the River Bonsa in a dilapidated canoe which they considered unsafe.
The teachers were required to scoop water out of the canoe when crossing the river to avoid being drowned. The school authorities indicated that several efforts to get a new canoe from the municipal assembly did not yield any positive result, so the teachers resolved to stay at home until something was done about the situation.
Consequently, the pupils were enjoying what could be described as indefinite holiday.
However, following the publication of the story by DAILY GUIDE, the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipal Assembly acted swiftly and presented a new canoe with eight life jackets worth GH?10,000 to the Akilika Community to help ferry the teachers to and from the school, the Public Relations Officer of the Tarkwa Nsuaem Municipal Assembly, Mrs. Barbie Annan Nunoo disclosed.
The Chief of Akilika, Godson Sadekla thanked the assembly for the intervention. He cried that the education of the children in the community had become a worry to them, as parents, especially as the children would write the same examination with other pupils in the whole country.
He believed a bridge across the river would make life better in the community.
He appealed to the government to help construct a teachers’ quarters in the community to help solve the accommodation challenges teachers posted to the area, face.
But the residents indicated that the use of the canoes including life jackets procured by the assembly could still pose danger to users, particularly in the rainy season when the river’s currents become swift. They therefore pleaded with the government and other philanthropists for a motorised canoe to make traversing the river swifter and safer.
From Emmanuel Opoku, Takoradi