The Sogakope Senior High School is calling on the government to assist in the infrastructural development of the school.

With a population of 3,606 students, the school has not seen enough improvement in infrastructure over the years.

Speaking at the school’s 60^th anniversary celebration grand durbar over the weekend, the headteacher of the school, Mr. Newman Henry Dziedzoave, noted the absence of washrooms at the newly constructed dormitories, as one of the major challenges of the school.

“The new GETFUND project that houses our girls does not have a functioning washroom facility. Because of this, the girls have now resorted to what they call ‘wrap and throw’ where they defecate in black polythene and throw them in bushes behind their dormitory, and it is not helping us at all,” he said.

According to him, “the school’s science lab Is also on the verge of collapse. The roof has been leaking so badly that all the ceilings came down, with all the electric wires dangling all over. We are just appealing for all these needs to be fixed so that we can move teaching and learning to the next level.”

“The situation is not different at the boys’ dormitory. Their numbers have outgrown the available accommodation. We need some more dormitories to adequately accommodate them. We need more toilet facilities and bathhouses to give a facelift to the dormitories. In view of all of these, we are appealing to the government to provide us with a 5000-seater capacity assembly hall, 18-unit classroom block, three dormitory blocks, and a science laboratory.”  

No vehicles

Mr. Dziedzoave has also lamented the non-availability of a pickup vehicle for the school. He said the only functioning bus is the 36-year-old science resource bus. He said the state of the bus makes transportation very difficult for both management and students.

He said “in the 60 years of the school’s existence, no single pickup vehicle has been allocated to this school. Because of that, we have to resort to teachers’ private vehicles to convey students to the hospital every time they fall sick and we want to convey materials to or from the school.”

He has therefore appealed to the government, the Ghana Education Service (GES) , and other benevolent persons of society to help procure a pickup vehicle for the school.

SOSA Projects.

As part of the celebration, the SOGASCO Old Students’ Association (SOSA) has handed over a renovated two-bedroom master’s apartment, sick bay, and a guest house to the school. The Association in collaboration with P.T.A. has also given a facelift to the school’s assembly hall, which is still struggling to accommodate the growing number of students.

Speaking in an interview with the outgoing SOSA president, Surveyor Maxwell Lukutor, he said “the main aim now, is to complete our two-storey library project. The building is a twin library project that when completed, will provide firsthand ICT training to our students. Our focus is to make it an ICT tour hub for other schools in the region and beyond.”

“As we speak, the project is about 85% complete. What is left now is to do the inner plastering and equip the place. So, we are now in consultation with some people to come on board to help complete this. Apart from these, we are also working on a lot of bungalow projects, be it renovation or construction of new ones to accommodate the staff,” he said.

To ward off intruders, SOSA has also completed and commissioned a new school gate to improve upon security on campus.

Achievements

The headteacher revealed that in “the school’s 60 years journey, over 70% of students have attained what is today’s equivalence of aggregate A1-C6, enabling them to attain admission into the tertiary institutions home and abroad.”

In 2021, SOGASCO rose to the quarterfinals of the National Science and Math Quiz competition. The school also won the national debate championship in 2016. The school is ranked one of the best in sports, representing Ghana at the first Hungarian Ambassador African Cup in Nigeria in 2017, regional fencing champions who represent at national competitions, culture and drama regional champions yearly, amongst several other achievements.   

The grand durbar on Saturday ended a week-long celebration of 60 years of the Lower Volta Varsity’s contribution to excellence in educational training. The celebration was on the theme; “Leveraging ICT Education for National Development.”