No toilet facilities for Pong-Tamale Senior High School

Posted on August 4, 2010 by westerhof| 1 Comment

Students of Pong-Tamale Senior High School (PONTASS) in the Northern Region are making do with free-range (open defecation) because of lack of toilet facilities at the school.
Most of the over 800 students have deserted the only toilet in the school which is near the boys’ dormitory because it is but a harvest of maggots. What is curious is the fact that the school authorities are aware that particular toilet cannot meet the demands of the student population.
The female students are even worse-off, because there is an uncompleted female toilet facility which has been abandoned since 2005. The facility is now a den of snakes and other predators. Students have, on several occasions, reported snake bites and scorpion stings while patronising the free-range or walking towards their dormitories.
The situation becomes very unbearable especially during the rainy season, as students try to evade notorious flies, as well as, device tactics to locate safe grounds to squat and do their own thing in an already messy one.
The school, established in 1991, is one of the two second cycle institutions in the Savelugu-Nanton District of the Northern Region. However, it is seriously reeling under numerous problems, one being the unavailability of proper toilet facilities.
Master Iddrisu Mohammed Rashad, the Senior Boys Prefect, expressed disquiet about the condition, explaining that the open defecation leads to the contamination of the major source of drinking water for the students, a dug-out dam.
Runoff water washes faecal matter into the dam whenever it rains heavily. A visit to the site confirmed that the dam, which lies on a lower gradient is constructed some 50 metres away from the boy’s dormitory.
Apart from the unbearable stench that emanates from the open defecation spot, Master Iddrisu Rashad, fears that a possible outbreak of cholera and other ailments are eminent if nothing is done about the situation immediately.
Other challenges facing the school include lack of accommodation for students and staff, lack of a library for the school and lack of potable water. Although the school has been running the boarding system for some time now, over-crowding at the dormitories is a major challenge to students, which sometimes compels them to sleep in their classrooms.
Also, students are forced to use the water from a dug-out dam together with cattle and other domestic animals in the community. It is distressing to learn that most students complain of stomach-ache and other water-related ailment from time to time. For instance, in a week an average of five students report of sickness at either the Savelugu Government Hospital or other health facilities in Tamale.
Source: Kwesi Yirenkyi Boateng, Public Agenda / (allAfrica.com, 2 August 2010