Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC) on Thursday launched its report on a survey conducted on educational resources in deprived districts in the country.
The survey was to enable GNECC identify bottlenecks in the educational distribution system to ensure efficiency and make recommendations in the distribution of basic materials to basic schools.
Mr Leslie Tetteh, National Coordinator of GNECC, launching 2010 GNECC Tracking Survey on
Educational Resources in Accra, said eight deprived districts out of 53 were selected for the survey.
Twenty schools were randomly selected from each district and 160 schools from seven regions in the southern part of the country were covered.
The survey was based on textbooks, capitation grant, furniture; teachers at post, availability of classrooms, sanitary facilities and school uniform.
On capitation grant, Mr Tetteh explained that 23 per cent of schools received the first tranche for 2009 and 2010 at the beginning of the first term.
He said in addition to delays, issues of inconsistencies in the amounts received prevailed.
With regard to classrooms, Mr Tetteh said deprived districts were constrained in terms of space for classrooms, as a result about two or three classes shared a classroom and about 38 per cent of schools surveyed had combined classes.
He noted that there were significant differences in the demand and supply of desks and on the average the pupil desk ratio was 1:7.
Findings of the survey on sanitary facilities indicated that on the average 43 per cent of schools were without urinals with the highest prevalence of 55 per cent in Volta,
Brong-Ahafo and Central Regions.
Forty-eight per cent of schools on the average were without toilets but prevalent in Western Region recording 76.8 per cent, Volta Region 75 per cent and Ashanti Region 65 per
cent.
Available statistics on school uniforms revealed that about 95 per cent of the deprived districts have not received the free school uniforms promised by government in January
2009.
Mr Tetteh said recommendations made included the need for improvement in record keeping at the District Directorate of Education (DDE), schools and computerisation of logistics at the DDE.
He called on government to increase advocacy to ensure efficient utilisation of resources to the education sector and allocation of more resources to deprived districts.
He called for the re-distribution of teachers as an immediate solution alongside on-going interventions like the untrained teachers training diploma in basic education.
Mr Tetteh said sanitary facilities as well as inadequate provision of desks in deprived districts should be addressed immediately and school-community alliance in school development
should be intensified.