Valco Trust Fund to construct 5,000 schools in 5 years

The Valco Trust Fund has launched a “Zero Schools Under Trees Project”, seeking to construct 5,000 schools over a five-year period from June this year.

The charity enterprise seeks to eliminate schools under trees and to reconstruct deplorable schools across the country.

The entire effort, estimated to cost GH¢3.5 billion, is being done in partnership with the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Energy.

The Valco Trust Fund is the charity wing of aluminium smelting company, Volta Aluminium Company Limited (Valco).

Projects

The Executive Director of the fund, Mr Kelvin Yeboah, said 500 kindergartens under trees, two deplorable junior high schools (JHSs), and one deplorable primary school would be rebuilt between June 1 and December 31 this year.

“From January to December 2022, we will construct 1,259 schools, both for schools under trees and those with deplorable structures. This will include 489 kindergartens, 250 JHSs and 52 primary schools,” he said.

Mr Yeboah was speaking during a press conference in Accra yesterday to present details of the project.

He said 1,259 schools would be constructed in 2023, 1,259 in 2024 and 1,126 in 2025.

He said the schools would have three-unit to six-unit classroom blocks with modern washrooms, furniture, library, canteen, head teacher’s office, storeroom, borehole, blackboard, and a partitioned staff common room, with space for every teacher.

Mr Yeboah said 2,417 nationwide were under trees, while 2,986 schools were in a deplorable condition following research conducted with the assistance of the GES to collate data on such schools.

Ministerial support

Mr Yeboah said the support from the Ministry of Energy would be to supply electricity to all the new schools.

He urged churches, corporate bodies and benevolent individuals to support in relevant ways to eliminate schools under trees by contributing into an account opened at various banks for the purpose.

“We are starting this project with an amount of GH¢6.8 million to build 18 schools as part of the 500 schools for the year. We, therefore, need an extra amount of GH¢155,697,250 to be able to build the remaining 482 kindergartens for the year,” he said.

The Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, gave an assurance that measures would be put in place to ensure that the facilities when built were maintained, and urged community members to desist from encroaching on school property.