The following Report is from a Site Visit to Christ Bethel Preparatory School conducted by Christian Poirier (Singer-Kids4Kids) in August, 2006:
Christ Bethel Preparatory School is located in Gbawe-Topbese (pronounced Bowy Topbees), about 7 miles outside of Accra, Ghana. There are roughly 500 inhabitants in the community, employed mainly in the stone quarry (stone crackers), as masons, and in petty trading from their houses. Gbawe-Topbese is located on top of a hill and has the bad fortune of being perched right above the area's dump, which is constantly smoldering and sends putrid clouds of burning trash up to the community residents. This makes it a rather unhealthy environment and I understand that children are particularly affected by the smoke. The houses are generally made from concrete, but the area is very poor, and I was told that many of its inhabitants pass their time begging in Accra and in the community. The majority of the students live locally and share the poverty of the neighborhood. As mentioned above, the area's children are most affected by the smoke from the burning trash dump and tend to experience health problems for this reason.
The Christ Bethel Preparatory School has been in operation for 11 years. There are 2 buildings and 11 classrooms along with a small office. The school is an attractive two-story structure that was being given a coat of paint the day I visited. There is a small courtyard in the center of the compound and the proprietress' house is also attached, behind the smaller class block. The classrooms are spacious and well maintained, in spite of their obvious wear and tear. The school's infrastructure has clearly been well preserved. There were two problem areas at the school in terms of cleanliness: the nursery and the bathroom. The nursery was littered with trash and had furniture lying knocked down and badly stacked. The bathroom was so jammed with broken furniture that I was unable to view its facilities. I was however told that this furniture was in the bathroom to get it out of the way before a carpenter came to repair it and put it back into service. The school was otherwise very well maintained and tidy. Lack of capital has made improvements difficult, but the school is nonetheless under development.
Christ Bethel School serves approximately 380 students in grades ranging from pre-kindergarten through Secondary School. The average class size is 25 students. Mrs. Esther Lartey is the proprietress of the school. Her assistant is Mr. Samuel Lartey. There are 20 full time and 5 part time teachers. All of the teachers are Secondary School graduates with six degree holders and one trained teacher. The proprietress is also a very experienced public school teacher who was also a top public education official for her district. Teachers are typically paid between 500,000 and 700,000 cidis ($55 to $77) a month depending upon their experience level. Current tuition rates range from 271,000 cidis ($30) for nursery and kindergarten to 390,000 cidis ($43) for lower primary, 426,000 cidis ($47) for upper primary and 515,000 cidis ($57) for Secondary School. Students are heavily subsidized by the school - more than half of the students pay only a portion of their fees or none at all (some students are in debt up to 2 million cidis, or $222, by the end of their education). The school?s official scholarships are based on academic merit. Four students from the same family means the fourth attends for free. The average family earns between 250,000 and 300,000 cidis a month ($27 and $33), meaning that the vast majority of families cannot afford to pay tuition for their children.
The lack of capital was no doubt due to the fact that over half of the students only paid a portion of their fees with some not paying at all. When asked about this unsustainable system that forced her into debt, she simply told me that she could not send the non-paying children home, especially because many of them were her best students and helped maintain the academic excellence of her school ("they are good so you can't sack them"). This commitment to the welfare of the poorest students was unrivaled among the schools I visited. I was never in doubt as to her sincerity and was very impressed with what they were able to create while dealing with severe financial hardships. In my mind, these circumstances place them among the top of the program's candidates. The school does have KVIP latrines, one for students and one for teachers with wash basins available. The bathrooms need to be expanded with additional room for WCs and water storage (water is purchased from a weekly water truck). Health care consists of on-site first aid with a bi-annual visit from government nurses - when sick students are brought to a nearby clinic at the school's expense. The school could use much better medical supplies and expanded service to students. Fortunately, the school does have a reliable source of electricity and will soon have phone lines. The school has no working computers and the few that they do own are in very poor condition. There is one computer teacher trained in maintenance that can also provide on site training for other staff. Additionally, this teacher?s son is a computer networking professional.
From the beginning of the visit the proprietress was eager to tell me that her school was the best candidate we had for the program. While I found this a little forward, I came to see her point: the school has consistent and excellent performance with students routinely gaining top marks in government tests, the teaching staff is dedicated and professional (there were teachers on rotation even for the summer courses), and the infrastructure is very well maintained and in good condition - all this in spite of the fact that the school has serious budget shortfalls and is quite in debt. Indeed, Mrs. Lartey showed me her meticulous books listing how much they were forced to borrow to pay teachers and maintain the high standards of the school. She is an highly experienced educator, having taught fifteen years in a public school (while simultaneously managing the Christ Bethel Preparatory School) and was also a prominent public education official during that time.
Christ Bethel Preparatory School would like to obtain grants to fund the education of many of the students who are orphans or whose parents cannot afford to pay their tuition. Additionally, they would like to obtain working computers, so that they can begin computer education classes for their students. Many other worthwhile projects are also available for funding.
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