Students of the Kagara Senior High School in the Karaga District of the Northern Region are appealing to the government and philanthropists to come to the aid of the school. The school lacks basic infrastructure such as learning and teaching materials, library, hostel facilities and classroom blocks to cater for the over 1,500 students of the school. Most of the students study in dilapidated wooded structures that were provided by the community. There is no single master’s bungalow or quarters in the school to house teachers, a situation that compels teachers to commute daily to the school which is a distance from the main town. Majority of the students who are not natives live in rented rooms and pay between GHC240 to GHC360 for two and three years advance. Five to ten students stay in a room while those who cannot afford the exorbitant rents charged by landlords in the area perch with friends. The Assistant Girls Prefect of the School, Mariam Alhassan Bawah said the lack of hostel facilities puts most of the girls in a very precarious situation. Some of them have to seek accommodation from men in town who take advantage of them. She said, majority of the students are not from the area and have to go through a lot just to get a place to lay their heads at night. Miss Mariam hinted that the students face a lot of challenges with the lack of basic amenities and urged that something is done about it to curtail the suffering of students. She said, though the district assembly has built a students’ hostel for them, the hostel is yet to be commissioned and handed over to school authorities. She called on the assembly to, as a matter of urgency, hand over the hostel to alleviate the suffering of students. “The hostel cannot cater for all of us but at least it will help,” she added. The Assistant Headteacher of the School, Mr Tahiru Yakubu Justice said problems of the school are enormous and added that, lack of teaching materials and accommodation for teachers and students of the school hinder quality teaching and learning. He therefore appealed to the Ghana Education Service, the Karaga District Assembly and philanthropists to provide the school with infrastructure to ease the suffering of the students. Story by Hamza Lansah/Karaga/Ghana