One week after re-opening of basic schools in the country, some school children in public schools in the New Juaben Municipality have not received the required number of free government exercise books.
Some schools have received part of the exercise books while others have not received any exercise book.
In some cases, the current pupil population of the schools was not taken into consideration when the allocations were being made to the schools and so the exercise books distributed were less than the number of pupils in the schools.
This came to light when Ghana News Agency toured a number of public schools in the Municipality on Monday and Tuesday.
The survey also revealed that the allocation of 13 exercise books for pupils in the Junior High Schools (JHSs), nine books for pupils in Upper Primary and less number of books for pupils in the Lower Primary were not sufficient.
This is because students at the JHS need 20 exercise books, those at Upper Primary need 14 while those at Lower Primary need 10.
At Adweso Trinity Presbyterian Model School, some teachers informed GNA that the school had not received its allocation of exercise books yet.
They said the school was aware that it had an allocation of exercise books to collect from the Municipal Education and that pupils at the JHS were expected to receive five books each while those at the Primary level would receive three each.
At Adweso St. Dominic Catholic School, GNA was informed that the school had not received any exercise books.
The school had been allocated exercise books and the JHS students are to receive five exercise books each but allocation has been made for pupils at the Primary level.
At Effiduase Methodist School Primary "A" and "B", GNA was informed that last term, each pupil in Upper Primary received six exercise books.
The headteacher of the School, Ms Josephine N. Owusu said that the school was expecting more exercise books this term but he could not say if it would include any supply to pupils at the lower Primary.
At Asokore Methodist Primary "A" and "B", the headteacher of the School, Mr Samuel Addae Darlington said the school had not received any exercise books.
At Asokore Methodist JHS, the headteacher, Mr Jonas Sasu Mensah said that last term each of the pupils had eight exercise books.
He said because the number of pupils used in determining the allocation was less than the current population of the school, each pupil had five books and that this term the school has not been invited to collect any exercise books.
At Asokore SDA Demonstration Primary School, the headteacher ,Mr Peter Nyarku said that last term, the school received six exercise books for each pupil at the Upper Primary but the school decided to give the pupils of the Upper Primary four exercise books each and those at the lower Primary had two each.
He said that pupils of Lower Primary would be given exercise books this term, but nobody has invited him to receive exercise book as at now.
In all the schools visited, it was only at Effiduase Methodist JHS that the headmaster confirmed that pupils in the school had received 13 exercise books each.
In a telephone interview with GNA, Augustus Nii Lante Cleland, New Juaben Municipal Director of Education, who was on national assignment outside the Municipality, explained that the free exercise books and school uniforms arrived in batches.
He said all those supplies that were received before the holidays were distributed to all the beneficiary schools and he personally went round to check the supplies.
Nii Cleland said the second batch of supplies were received when schools were on holidays and had he directed that they should be distributed to the schools
Commenting on the situation, the Eastern Regional Minister, Mr Samuel Ofosu-Ampofo, directed the Municipal Directorate of Education to ensure that all the government supplies get to the beneficiary schools and pupils immediately.