Day two of the nationwide teachers’ strike is biting hard in the Upper West Region, leaving the historic Wa Model Primary School deserted.

Established in 1917, Wa Model Primary is the oldest school in the Wa Municipality and the alma mater of the late former Finance Minister, Prof. Kwesi Botchwey, and Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams.

From afar, the school looks like a ghost town. But up close, a little over two dozen pupils are scattered across the compound, idling, roaming, biking and forced into recreation.

Many pupils have already gone home, leaving only the headteacher, Payne Puazaga, a teacher on duty and two teacher trainees to watch over the few who reported to school.

JoyNews checks revealed that classrooms remained locked, while school food vendors had also stayed away in solidarity with the strike, forcing pupils to trek a quarter of a kilometre in search of food.

Some of the pupils who spoke to JoyNews said they had no option but to roam.

“No master in the school. We are going to buy food. The vendors are not in. No teachers are there,” one primary pupil said.

For Junior High School learners, the strike has become an opportunity for free movement.

“No teachers at school. Students now have free will to visit their friends at other schools to spend the free time together,” a female JHS learner said.

A Form One student of Wa Municipal Model JHS, Abubakari Issa Fahim, who was found playing on a swing with two colleagues, said the strike would affect their studies and called on the government to act.

“Government did not pay our teachers and they are going on strike. Some of the students have not come, they have gone home. It will affect us a lot. They have to teach us, now they do not want to teach us. We want government to do what the teachers are asking for,” he lamented.

The situation remains uncertain as the strike enters its second day, with parents and pupils anxiously waiting for a resolution.