One of the sectors in this country where there is a huge gulf between the rural areas and the urban areas is in the educational sector. When the national kitty is being distributed, the rural folks do not get their fair share. This is clearly manifested in the absence of adequate infrastructure, qualified teachers, and resources and facilities that will enhance teaching and learning in the schools located in the rural areas.

Speaking in this vein, Mr. Mathias Puozaa, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education in Ghana recently lamented that ”Many qualified teachers, mostly university graduates, do not want to accept posting to rural areas since amenities such as potable water, electricity and accommodation are lacking, leaving only pupil teachers or no teachers at all in those areas” (see Ghanaian Times, September 23, 2009, back page).

Not only do schools in the rural areas lack qualified teachers, in most places basic resources that will enhance teaching and learning are non-existent. This massive neglect manifests itself in the poor performance at the national examinations like the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE). Many children, for various Reasons, drop out of school before they reach this level! There are places in this country where not even a single child has passed this examination for a number of years. As one will expect, except there is radical intervention, human or divine, most of these children will not be able to realize their God-given potential, not to speak of their ability to contribute meaningfully to the nation’s development. This neglect in its various forms, is detrimental to our development as a nation, and dehumanising and discriminatory to the rural-poor.

It is from this perspective that Regent-Ghana, led by its President, has embarked on the much needed educational empowerment project at Adimadim-Kyenku Larbi, a rural settlement within the Suhum-Kraboa Coaltar Constituency in the Eastern Region of Ghana.

The settlement is said to have started in the 1940s, following the construction of a road linking Suhum and Koforidua. The inhabitants, who are mostly farmers, settled along the roads to facilitate easy transportation of their products to the urban areas. Subsequently, a market centre was created with brisk business on market days. Maize, cassava, plantain, and cocoa are the main cash crops in the community.

This is supplemented by tomatoes, okro, and pepper. Kyenku-Larbi is one of the over forty settlements along the River Adimadim, from which it derives its name. Currently, Adimadim has over 2,000 inhabitants spread over some 40 settlements. The name Kyenku-Larbi itself, is a corruption of the Ga phrase (Kyenku le obiee), literally translates as ‘Kyenku takes care of his children.’ This depicts the way the original inhabitant of this village, a Ga man, called Kyenku, managed to take good care of his offspring at that setllement. Unfortunately, this has not been the case for most inhabitants at this settlement in later years due to abject poverty.

Primary school education at Adimadim-Kyenku Larbi came on the back of religion. A school was built in 1974 following the arrival of Pastor Sampson Adjei Osei (now deceased) in 1972, and the opening of the Church of Melchizedeck the same year. Apart from the evangelistic activities of Pastor Sampson Adjei, the church saw to the temporal needs of the community by providing funding for the primary school project until 1976 when the community started to assist in paying the teachers.

In 1978, the school came under the Ghana Education Service. Unfortunately, pupils of the Primary school had to walk for some two kilometres to Aboabo Sonkor for the then middle school programme. The challenges posed by the problem of distance, brought the community together in 2002 to construct a four-classroom block for a JHS. The building, however, was left uncompleted since then.

Myriads of other factors conspired to set the stage to undermine the educational efforts of this community: enrolment figures continue to dip low, teacher and pupil absenteeism is rife; lateness to school by teachers and pupils is a daily routine rather than the exception, and quality Accommodation for teachers in the community is non-existent. The result is what you might expect: the abysmal performance of the children in this community in the national examinations. The BECE results have been consistently poor, leaving parents and pupils to wonder if it was worth investing in education at all. Unless a child is moved out of this community to further his or her education in a better endowed school in an urban area, the chances of one passing the BECE is almost negligible; success in the national examinations has always been a mirage and a bewildering experience!

The Suhum District is said to have about 100 Junior High Schools distributed within several circuits; the Adimadim-Kyenku Larbi JHS is one of seven schools belonging to a circuit. As one would expect of most of the rural schools in Ghana, the performance in the BECE examinations over the years has been consistently regretful. In 2005 twenty-one pioneer JSS students in the school wrote the BECE examinations and only six people passed; the highest grade was 20 and lowest 29. This has been the best performance so far. In 2006 only 3 students passed out of about 18 students who wrote the examinations. The best performance stood at aggregate 27.

In 2007 nobody passed the BECE. In 2008 only one person passed with aggregate 29, and this person happened to be someone who wrote the 2007 examinations and failed! At the 2009 BECE the best record stood at aggregate 40! Despite this poor performance at this school, I am told it came second in the 7 schools in the circuit during 2008 examinations! So one can imagine the state of affairs in the other schools.

The problems that have bedeviled the school over the years, include low enrolment, lack of suitable accommodation for teachers in the community culminating in lateness, absenteeism and inadequate monitoring of pupils’ progress; a situation where some teachers sent the children to work on their farms instead of being at school, has also been mentioned as one of the setbacks. The other problems include the inability or unwillingness of some parents to pay the required token fees of their wards, lack of interest by some children, and chronic absenteeism on the part of some Pupils. This myriad of factors has contributed to high drop-out rates, and poor performance at the national examinations. The low enrolment and drop out ratio are dangerously skewed to the detriment of the girl-child. According to Mr Anakwa Manteaw, the headmaster of the school, who has served at this school for over seven years, out of some forty students in the school only a third are girls.

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