Mampong School For The Deaf Appeals For Support

Currently, the school has being a boarding school offering four main programmes, namely, General Arts, Technical, Home Economics, and Visual Arts, while the current total enrolment of the students is approximately 229 made up of 143 boys and 86 girls with the population of 60 teaching and non-teaching staff.

Since its establishment, the school has been able to train several Deaf students and prepared them for higher or tertiary education, though?Some of the students who left the walls of the school were able to further their education in the public universities and other tertiary institutions such as the University of Ghana, Legon, University of Cape Coast, University of Education, Winneba, Colleges of Education, Presbyterian College of Education- Akropong, ?Bagabaga College of Education, Navrongo, Tamale and? Koforidua Polytechnics, with among others.

The school administration block have been operating on a rented premise with a limited infrastructure for extension and resourcing for the level of education of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing individuals, while Some of the few school?projects such as the 3 storey classroom block, girls dormitory block and the teachers bungalow, whose foundations have been?laid many years ago are still at a standstill due to lack of funds for their continuation and completion, though, the limitation of the space available has created no room for expansion whereas In spite of limited accommodation, the school is under undue pressure to admit and accommodate the large number of the students who qualified for admission into the school annually, meanwhile the cost of rent?have been increased to unaffordable level to the extent that? the school is facing eviction? and evacuation? by the landlords.

The Classroom block is about two kilometers away from the dormitory, which the students have to walk from dormitory to classroom block of the school daily crossing the main Mampong ? Aburi highway several times a day whereby students always run on the high risk of being knocked by speeding vehicles, which Such unfortunate event of road accident had been sometimes experienced by the innocent deaf students in the school.

The school currently lacks Science, Computer/ICT Labs, while the library is operated in a very limited space with inadequate books and other library resources, as well as the school has no means of transport while all buses are broken down and could not be repaired due to lack of funds which has been some of the major problems facing the school that require urgent solution in order to help revive the sinking image of the school.

The school like one of the special schools for persons with Disabilities (PWDs) is solely financed by the Government through Ghana Education Service-Special Education Division; however, such?support from the government alone is inadequate in meeting the needs of the school.

The school management therefore appeals to individuals or groups, philanthropists as well as Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) could come to their aid with support of any kind and also like to appeal to the tertiary institutions especially the private ones to open their doors of admission to the qualified Deaf students with the minimum qualifications who may express?interest in furthering their education in some of their courses of studies or programmes .

The Headmaster of the school, Mr. Nathan Pecku who brief the media said, it would be greatly appreciated if efforts are made by individuals and Institutions to assist the academically brilliant Deaf and Hard of Hearing students with the institution of a scholarship scheme for the Deaf, to enable them afford the high cost of education both locally and abroad.