I've included details of Lawra Secondary School as I taught there from January 1994 to the end of 1996. There are serious shortages of teachers in all subjects in the northern regions, especially at secondary level. VSO enables secondary school teachers to work at many schools in the north teaching a variety of subjects, but concentrating on science and maths where the acutest shortages exist. Their terms and condictions are very similar to their local counterparts and are also paid by the Ghana Education Service a sum equivalent to about eighty US dollars a month.

Lawra Scondary, or Law Sec as it is referred to by all the students, is predomitarily a boarding school, with students attending from upto 100km away. Because the school offers science subjects, it is very popular, as science is seen as one of the best routes to later employment. Education in Ghana is fully accesible to both boys and girls. Girls make up a good proportion of students, possibly as high as 40% nationwide, a figure rarely equalled in negihbouring West African states. At Law Sec there are approximately 300 girls and 400 boys. In addition to students taking the science options of biology, chemistry and physics, the school offers programmes concentrating on secretariat, business, agriculture and literature.

All courses are 3 years long and culminate in students sitting their Senior Secondary School Certificates of Education. The SSSCE system was developed from the old 'O' and 'A' level systems with the aim of dramatically increasing the numbers of students qualifying for further study at university. The examinations are pitched between the two older qualifications. All papers are now written by the West African Examination Council, which aims to set similar standards across the english speaking countries in the region.

The school is state run and financed, although boarding students pay a contribution to boarding fees which are complemented by government feeding grants, issued to schools in the northern regions in acknowledgment of the very low incomes in these areas. Many students from villages, whose parents are subsitance farmers, still have difficulty in finding this money.

The following pictures and accompanying explainations illustrate some of the aspects of day to day life at Law Sec. Click here to take a tour, or click on the individual pictures below.