The Headmaster of St. Augustine’s College, Rev. Fr. Dr Patrick Godfred Appiah, has raised a serious alarm over an acute shortage of residential staff accommodation, describing it as one of the school’s most pressing infrastructure bottlenecks.

According to the headmaster, out of a total staff strength of 140, a staggering majority must commute to work daily, as only 60 teachers currently reside on the school campus.

Speaking at the launch of the school’s 97th anniversary celebrations and the unveiling of a new teachers’ accommodation project, Rev. Fr. Dr Appiah warned that the situation threatens the maintenance of discipline and academic standards.

“Improving conditions for teachers must remain a priority if schools are to maintain high educational standards,” he stated.

To directly combat the housing deficit, the 2002 year group of the Augustine’s Past Students’ Union has stepped in to spearhead a landmark residential intervention dubbed the BOLT teacher accommodation project.

The initiative is designed to construct modern housing units on campus, allowing more staff members to live on the school premises to ensure effective student supervision and mentorship.

Unveiling the structural plans, the Chairperson of the Technical Team, Ing. Elliot Defortse, emphasised the deliberate design of the project to meet the urgent needs of the faculty.

“We are looking at taking that queue of maintenance from the past, adding modern technology, whatever it is that is modern, to try and use that to see what the future holds out for us. So we are doing this. It is a test case, sort of, for us to know if it works,” he added.

The event, which brought together various stakeholders and old boys, highlighted the growing reliance on alumni networks to bridge major infrastructural gaps in senior high schools.

Adding his voice to the call, the Dean of the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) Law School, Professor Kofi Abotsi, noted that the burden of sustaining educational excellence cannot be carried by school administrators alone. He commended the APSU 2002 year group for their proactive leadership and urged other corporate bodies and alumni associations to prioritise teacher welfare nationwide.

“I think there’s just too much liberality in our country that has crept into our schools. Schools are supposed to be, especially boarding schools, places of discipline. And unless and until we give our headmasters and administrators of these schools a wide degree of latitude in terms of discretion to manage the young ones, we’re going to continue running into these problems,” he added.

As the school gears up for its 97th anniversary, the management is hopeful that the BOLT project will catalyse further swift interventions to permanently solve the campus housing crisis.