Teacher accommodation at Benim Saviour school

Rationale and planning

Benim Saviour is a village about 20 minutes from Mampong. We received a letter asking us to consider assisting with teacher accommodation at the school there. We visited in November 2024 and met headteacher FAFrancis Agyei and several of his teachers.

Teacher accommodation is important for rural schools because it incentivises teachers to accept a posting there, and makes it far more practical for them to do so. We spoke to three teachers to understand the situation:

• ESOEunice Serwaa Owusu teaches Primary class 1 (15 pupils) and has been at the school for 6 months. She rents a room in Benim village, about 30 minutes’ walk away. She has a young son in Kumasi, who lives with his grandmother. If teacher accommodation were available, she could bring him to Benim and he could attend the school.

• EYEdward Yaboah is the assistant head teacher and teaches Primary class 5 (25 pupils). He has been a teacher for 8 years, two of them at this school. He commutes daily from Mampong by motorbike.

• ASIAlimatu Sadia Ishak teaches Primary class 4 (21 pupils). She lives with her husband and three children and teacher accommodation would not directly benefit her, but she was supportive of the proposal.

What we propose

We will build teacher accommodation at Benim Saviour school, following the model we have used successfully at Aframano, Kontonho, and Anyankamamu.