A tale of two Ghanas: "it's like a human being; after all it can think." Welcome to a computer class in Northern Ghana where successive governments have continually neglected the provision of educational facilities. Marika Sherwood was there recently revisiting some schools in the North and the Northeast.

THOUGH, AS A HISTORIAN, I visit Ghana for the wealth of its archives, this was my fourth visit to the Northeast and the North as the secretary of a small charity, the Ghana Education Link (GEL). On my first visit I was amazed at the difference: I was, surely, in a different country to the South, I thought. Better read some more history ... and see what I can do to aid the schools.

I have now visited 14 schools and met headteachers and teachers, chiefs and members of the Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs), wherever possible. What I learned is, I think, very important. Partly because for Ghana to move forward, education provisions around the country must be equalised; the North must no longer be seen as a source of labour, forced or free.

As my neighbour on the bus to Tamale was as friendly and accommodating as most Ghanaians are, I asked him: "Shouldn't the children we see selling by the roadside be in school?" "Of course," he replied. "But there are many parents who cannot afford the school fees and compulsory uniforms, and the pencils, exercise and textbooks. And boys get preference over girls."

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I decide it would be undiplomatic to ask why uniforms are compulsory when so many parents cannot afford them. Is this a remnant of colonialism? Or do the parents able to afford it proudly show off that their children are able to attend school? But then how do the others feel?

In the morning I left for the town of Kpandai, on the new Metro bus. I am delighted that at long last there is public transport, especially as much of this "road" is not surfaced. The bus makes many stops, dropping and picking up passengers, so the journey is long. But I don't mind as I am happy that so many people can now get about with some degree of comfort and safety.

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I had a very interesting conversation with a fellow passenger, a teacher at one of the schools along our route. He had to teach the compulsory computing course, but without access to computers (or electricity). Some weeks into the course, he asked his pupils to describe what a computer might look like. Two of them said "like a human being; after all it can think".

The next morning, we motorbiked to the village of Katiejeli where GEL has been trying to help. We first visit the Islamic Primary School. The 80 children in the Kindergarten class are taught under the trees. The only writing slates are the ones supplied by GEL. In the dirty-walled, dark classrooms with pitted floors, there are 60 boys and 72 girls; the number of girls has increased recently as GEL provided money for uniforms.

Some of the government's "capitation fee" has been used to purchase exercise books as most of the parents cannot afford to buy these. But as this fee also has to be used to buy textbooks, at best two pupils have to share one text; in some classes it is one between five and in others there are only old delapidated texts.

For the seven classes, there are only two trained teachers, while another two are working for their certificates. (This means giving up your holidays and paying the fees--a hefty GH[sent] 90-100 per module.)

I ask how many languages are spoken in the village and surrounding area? Ten, I am told. The school has no electricity, there is no nearby well for water, no toilets, and no accommodation for the teachers.

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We then went to the village Primary and Junior Schools. Conditions are very similar, except that here pupils of the two Kindergarten classes sit on the floor. GEL has not yet provided sufficient slates. Textbooks are again shared between two pupils at least, while Primary 6, has no "new science" texts at all. The roof over Primary 5'S classroom is partly missing! For the 432 pupils, there are 8 teachers, of whom only one is trained. And the children in this village are better off than those in the next one along the road, where there is no school building: lessons are under the trees in the dry season only! I had asked the village chief to arrange for me to meet with the teachers and the PTAs. From this very open discussion I learned that:

* The illiteracy level among the parents was about 90%.

* Between 70 and 75% of local children attend school.

* The overcrowding in the classrooms made teaching even harder, especially with no textbooks or any kind of teaching aids/supporting materials.

* There are insufficient sports/recreational facilities--these would attract more children.

* ICT cannot be taught adequately as there are no computers and electricity is not connected to the school.

* The government's "capitation grant" is wholly inadequate for all it has to cover. That it is collected retrospectively causes problems (ie, Term I funds are available sometime during Term 2; but Term 3's are usually only available at the beginning of the next school year!).

* Girls are marginalised and pushed into income-generating activities; there are still some early marriages.

* During the harvest season, many children are not in school as their labour is needed in the fields.

* Many parents would attend literacy classes--in English; whether there should be separate classes for women and men was much discussed. They could attend three nights a week, and not during the heavy farming season.

I promised that I would investigate what could be done about literacy classes. A couple of years before this meeting, I had discovered that Non-Formal Education was supposed to provide literacy classes. These, the government had decreed, should be taught five nights a week, year round, for two years, in one of the main languages of the South. "What practical use is being literate in Ewe," someone asked.

The volunteers are supposed to teach without pay; they are given an "incentive", such as a bicycle. It is therefore no wonder that when I followed up the published list of supposedly existing literacy classes, I could not find one that was functioning.

So what can I do? Perhaps find practising teachers willing to teach the limited periods outlined above, and supply them with the standard English reading texts? Pay them some minimal hourly rate? That is what GEL has begun to do in another village. This, of course, is what the government should be doing, given the level of illiteracy in areas where schools are a relative innovation. After all, literacy is absolutely key to "development", however you interpret that word.

In the next village, Mbowura, there are only there classrooms for 8 classes. Here again, there are not enough slates, not enough desks, not enough exercise books, not enough of anything: for example, Primary 5 has 43 pupils and only six English texts and hardly more for Science. As there is no Primary 6 class, pupils have to walk to the nearest available school.

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I returned to Kpandai, now the capital of a new district and responsible for the villages described above. Conditions in the town's own schools are not better.

In the Islamic Junior Secondary School, there are almost twice as many boys as girls (182: III); there is only one trained teacher; the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) helps to pay the salaries of two volunteers; and at best, there is one textbook between two pupils. At my meeting with the teachers and some members of the PTA, it was pointed out that the "capitation fee" cannot cover all the needs. As there is no electricity and no computers, it is impossible to teach the compulsory IT course.

It was estimated that 10 languages were spoken by the pupils. It was emphasised that there were no teaching materials, no accommodation for teachers, no furniture, no free training for the teachers, and no materials to aid building maintenance.

The Roman Catholic schools in the town are in a slightly better situation, due to the assiduous fundraising by the priests. Parents are expected to pay a small fee. But here too textbooks have to be shared, and Primary 6 had no texts at all! Despite the requirement for parents to supply exercise books, not all pupils have one. The ratio of girls to boys is almost equal in the Primary, but in the JSS it is 1: 2. Though in the JSS there are five trained teachers as well as three untrained volunteers, in the Primary there are only two trained teachers. The JSS has been supplied with two computers by the Catholic Mission, but there were no trained IT teachers. How schoolteachers in any of these schools keep up their morale and energy is beyond my understanding. Their wages are very low and paying for accommodation in the villages eats up almost half. The classrooms are bare: there is a long blackboard (ie, part of the wall painted black) and white chalk--and that's all. Teaching aids are unknown, there is often no electricity, no money to buy paint to repaint the stained walls, and parents have had to make some of the desks.

There are no libraries even in the Junior Secondary Schools, not a dictionary or an encyclopaedia; not a wall chart, not a globe. No coloured pencils, paint or felt-tips and no paper except the one exercise book which has to last at least a whole term. Is it the enthusiasm of the children that heartens them? After all, many have to walk kilometres to get to school. Sadly, some may be in school for one term, but not the next, depending on the family's funds for uniforms and exercise books, and the need for help in the fields.

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I also visited the new District Education Office. About 3 km out of town, it was, as are all the other district offices, in a rented building. The ground floor of this rather large building was completely empty. Upstairs there were some semi-derelict desks. The seven officers gathered around one of these to talk with me.

No, no other furniture. Even these desks had been borrowed from local schools. No, there was no equipment of any kind. Electricity? No. Telephone line? No. A computer? No. A typewriter old enough to be a museum piece is brought in to show me their sole means of communication. No, no textbooks for distribution. No, no vehicles; the two old, decrepit ones allocated to them had already broken down on the appalling "roads". And no, no allocation of funds yet from the District Assembly.

I now went north, to revisit the Zuarun-gu Senior Secondary School. Lo and behold, there is a roof on the previous skeleton of the administration/library building, which was begun 5-6 years ago.

As for the intended library: there are not enough textbooks for the core subjects, so will they ever get books for a library? Computers? No. There are insufficient classrooms as the School Feeding Programme introduced by the government has resulted in more pupils remaining at school and applying to the Senior Secondaries; prospective pupils have had to be turned away.

I braved myself to visit the girls' dormitory again: it is so dark and overcrowded with dangerously balanced bunk-beds.

On to Zongo Senior Secondary, where I am particularly concerned with the demands for the purchase of equipment by each pupil for the Home Economics course. At Gh[send] 173, this is way beyond the means of many of the parents. And why should each pupil purchase all of these knives and sieves? The Home Economics class I visited was taught in a normal classroom with the teacher's desk serving as a kitchen table. Cooking is on one small coal-fired stove on the floor. Ingredients? Tinned tomato paste and Chinese rice!

A new classroom block was started in 2006, but the builders have not been seen since January 2007! For the core subjects, textbooks are one between two; for electives much less, and there are no agriculture texts at all. Next stop is the Zuarungu-Moshi Primary. Here the usual situation with textbooks has been worsened by the increase in pupil numbers since the School Feeding Programme was introduced. So many children are now attending that the amount of food allocated to each child has been reduced. The construction of a new school block, funded by the EU, was due for completion by the beginning of the 2008 academic year, but again the builders disappeared. The building is still unfinished and the quality of workmanship is woeful, even dangerous. The KVIP toilet pits have been dug and walls erected--but with no doors and no covers over the unfinished pits, thus presenting a danger to children.

One of the headteachers I had a long conversation with asked an important question: "There is only a two-day training workshop for untrained teachers, who are then sent to schools to take over classes. But a fully trained teacher undergoes three years' training. How can these untrained ones perform adequately? How much of the few trained teachers' time has to be devoted to supporting/training their untrained colleagues?"

It is no wonder that trained teachers do not want to work in areas without electricity, running water, toilets, accommodation; and in schools with inadequate classrooms, no teaching materials and woefully insufficient text and exercise books. The pupils have problems as well, as explained to me (in writing, at my request, by some JSS pupils); "The foremost issue is about the lack of potable water ... [We] only have one borehole to serve us ... The students suffer from this situation because when they go there for water they will have to take a long time before they can get a chance to fetch the water. And when this happens, they will be late for school which will not help them to improve upon their academic performance ..."

The girls emphasised that: "We don't get enough time for study because we do a lot in the house ... By the time we finish, we will feel lazy because we work a lot. The boys get all the advantages ..."

Back in Accra, I immerse myself in historical research. Sometimes delving into history helps you keep your sanity when the real world is too intractable and you feel powerless--in our much-vaunted democracy!