Education has always proven to be a very important tool for development in any country. In Ghana, however, although the government has taken steps to ensure the realizations of quality education, there is still a lot of work to be done as the Ghanaian educational sector is facing several challenges, especially in rural areas.
As many other rural villages in the North District of Ghana, the five villages experience their own obstacles in the educational sector. Without looking at the management side, the basic facilities for children to access the education are very poor and deplorable. Lack of school building and its facilities, lack of human resources to fill the minimum criteria of the school, long-distance between homes and school, lack of books/resources, library facilities, computer lab, etc. have turned out to be the obstacles for communities in rural areas in Ghana.
Most of the existing schools are not well maintained; therefore, the buildings are not safe enough for children and teachers to conduct the teaching and learning process. Some of the schools have no room for the basic school components to manage the resources and its facilities. The distance between school and home is also a challenge. It is relatively long and no means of transportation are available to facilitate the students to school. All the students from kindergarten to primary school spend hours to go to school by foot.
Challenges In Rural Education
Poor classroom and furniture condition in the schools
Inadequate textbooks, reading and teaching/learning materials, education and sports equipment
Lack of library and computer lab especially in remote areas
High rate of female dropout after primary level
This situation undoubtedly holds back the pace of educational development in Ghana today and results in a huge gap between children from rural and urban areas in terms of quality education. We were hit with this reality when I visited a small rural community called Jerusalem with its inhabitants, less than 6000 people.