A Ranking member of the Education Committee in Parliament, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe says the Committee will meet the Minister of Education over infrastructural challenges faced by basic public schools.

This comes after the premiering of the documentary ‘Ghana’s schools of shame’ by JoyNews which highlighted the dilapidated conditions under which some students studied in basic public schools.

Speaking on JoyNews’ The Pulse, the Akatsi North MP said after the documentary was aired, the Education Committee has decided to meet the Minister of Education to discuss what can be done to address the situation.

“I spoke with the chairman when this was aired on your channel, we plan to meet the Minister when schools reopen so they put in place a programme so that basic schools at least should be supplied with furniture throughout the country,” he said.

Although he said it was originally the responsibility of the district assemblies to provide furniture to the schools, he argued that “government or the Ministry through GETFund must take up the responsibility and then get school furniture provided to schools.”

He added that as soon as Parliament resumes from recess, the Committee would push for the approval of a substantive budgetary allocation for school furniture for basic public schools.

In the interim, Mr. Nortsu-Kotoe said the Committee is in talks with authorities to include furniture in the contract whenever a classroom project is awarded.

“We are in talks with the authorities that when you award classroom block, it should be accompanied by furniture, you can’t just construct a six-unit classroom block and leave it without furniture.

“So provision of furniture should be a component of the contract so that going forward, once you award the contract at any cost, there would be furniture,” he added.

JoyNews on Monday premiered ‘Ghana’s schools of shame’ which highlighted the poor conditions under which a school in the North-East Region had their classes.

The documentary was the first of many series to be aired on the subject of infrastructural challenges in public basic schools in the country.