Recent data available through the Ministry of Education's (MoE) Education Management Information System (EMIS) suggests that as of 2021, 50 percent (596,949) KG pupils, 40 percent (1,308,479) primary pupils and 30 percent (425,465) JHS pupils did not have seating and writing places, bringing the total to 2,330,893, representing 40 percent of basic school pupils.
Pupils lie on their bellies to write and others have improvised blocks and stones as seats and the situation at the upper primary level was no different.
Conditions in the classrooms were deplorable as children sat on the cracked cemented floor to take lessons.
The situation according to the management is affecting the quality teaching and learning in the primary schools.
Despite a national desk shortage of 40 percent, the northern regions of Ghana—Savannah, Northern, North-East, Upper West, Upper East, Bono East, and Oti—experienced ratios surpassing the national average.
The Gushegu Municipality in the Northern Region is one of the hardest hit, with over sixty percent deficit.
Primary School children have to sit in fours on dual desks with many sitting on the floor or lying on their bellies to take lessons.
At the Junior High level, the situation is even worse.
Teachers complain that the situation is frustrating and impeding academic work.
Mahama Hafiz, Headteacher of Maazijung M/A primary said "My school has over 768 children from KG to primary six, but our furniture is only 40 in number and even with that some are broken and so, majority of the children sit on the floor.
"The children are not comfortable and so most of them don’t come to school again. Their parents cannot also afford to provide them with the furniture and so we are just managing here."