Two abandoned classroom projects leave Toflokpo pupils learning under a tree

On the last day of term, 12-year-old Ismael Tetteh could not stop smiling.

He had completed Primary Six and was looking forward to starting Junior High School in October. His new school is only a short walk from his present classroom in Toflokpo, in the Ada West District of the Greater Accra Region.

But Ismael already knows what awaits him there.

“I feel good about going to JHS, but they say they are learning under a tree,” he told The Fourth Estate. “That one, I feel bad.”

He worries about the rain, the scorching sun, and the possibility of birds defecating on him or his books. He also fears the embarrassment of being mocked.

“People will give me a name that I don’t want,” he said.

Ismael’s fears reflect the daily experience of dozens of pupils at Toflokpo Junior High School, about 70 kilometres east of Accra.

The community-built school has operated since 2002, but it does not have enough classrooms to accommodate its growing student population. Some pupils sit on makeshift cement blocks beneath a tree, exposed to the weather.

A few metres away, two unfinished classroom projects stand as reminders of attempts to address the problem. One was started by the community in 2016. The other was started by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) in 2020.

Neither has been completed.

When The Fourth Estate visited Toflokpo in July 2026, the Head Teacher of the adjoining primary school, Dennis Abayateye, was preparing to send more than 90 pupils to the Junior High School in October, worried about where they would sit.

“I’m aware they don’t have classrooms, so that is my main fear,” he said. “I’m 100 percent sure that they will be under a tree.”

Mr Abayateye said the lack of classrooms could force some parents to send their children to schools in other communities. Those schools are farther away, and pupils may face safety risks on the journey.

The Chairman of the School Management Committee, Jonas Tetteh Sebbie, said the poor conditions had affected academic performance.

He recalled a period when Toflokpo JHS ranked first or second in the district.

“Now, because of the state of the school, they have dropped,” he said. “Even at the last 2025 exams, out of 38 schools, we were positioned at 28 or 29.”

In 2016, residents began raising money to construct a three-classroom block with two offices.

The project was to be financed with income from farming and salt mining, but the community ran out of money after laying the foundation.

Four years later, GETFund began constructing another classroom block behind the unfinished community project.

Some residents had expected the government to use the available resources to complete the structure they had already started. Instead, GETFund began a separate building.

“We pleaded with the Assembly to use the resources to complete what the community has started, but it refused,” Mr Sebbie said. “They said this is from GETFund and has its own special funding.”

The GETFund construction later stopped. The site is now overgrown with weeds, while the community’s project has also stalled.

The Fourth Estate wrote to GETFund and requested an interview about the abandoned project. The Fund has not responded several weeks later.

The Chief of Toflokpo, Nene Mailo Dadebom Anim II, spoke fondly and proudly about how the school had previously produced a recipient of a presidential award.

“If the school stays in this state, we cannot produce people like that again,” he said. “The standard of learning is too poor, and the past is brighter than now.”

The Ada West District Chief Executive, Jerry John Foreigner Modzifa Tanihu, also described the situation as worrying.

“You go there in the afternoon and see them sitting under a tree to learn. It is so sad,” he said. “There is a project that was started by GETFund, but we don’t know why they couldn’t continue.”

Nene Anim has called on either GETFund or the Ada West District Assembly to complete one of the projects. He said it does not matter which building was finished, provided the pupils are given classrooms for teaching and learning.

He linked the community’s inability to complete its project to the long-running dispute over the Songor Lagoon, the jewel of Ada’s salt industry.

The lagoon has been leased to Electrochem Ghana Limited, a commercial salt company owned by businessman Daniel McKorley.

Nene Anim said the lease had deprived residents of income they previously used to finance community projects, including the school.

“If not for that, we could at least have completed the extra classrooms we are trying to build,” he said.

Mr Tanihu made a similar argument.

“Previously, communities did these things on their own. They did not call the Assembly,” he said.

“But now that the Songor, their major source of funds, has been taken away from them, it is affecting education, crime and so many other things.”

The Fourth Estate examined the conflict over the lease in its 2024 investigation, Death and Brutality: The Battle for West Africa’s Largest Salt Deposit.

Mr Tanihu said the District Assembly is trying to provide classrooms for Toflokpo, but he did not set a firm date.

Unless that changes, pupils who report for the new academic year in October will continue learning beneath a tree.

“I suggest that they should put up a school building for us so that it can improve our learning,” the school prefect of Toflokpo JHS, Frank Anim, told The Fourth Estate.

Ismael can only hope the situation changes before he starts Junior High School.

For now, two unfinished projects stand beside the school, with no indication that either will be completed in good time for the new intake of students.