Richard Akumbasi still remembers the day in 2014 when his school’s dormitory burned to the ground. It took seven years to rebuild, forcing students to sleep in classrooms and creating a shortage of learning spaces that persists today.
“Classrooms are not very conducive for a dormitory,” said Akumbasi, Upper East Regional branch Chair for the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS), speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show. “The resources are not there, so when the little you have becomes destroyed, it becomes a real challenge.”
Nearly a decade later, the problem has only intensified. Ghana has experienced a wave of dormitory fires at senior high schools across the country. The blazes have displaced thousands of students, destroyed property, and, in the most tragic case, claimed the life of a first-year student.
The most recent incident occurred Feb. 2, 2026, when fire destroyed five girls’ dormitories at Tolon Senior High School in the Northern Region, displacing 346 students. Three dormitories belonged to Gbewaa House, with one each from Furgurson and Tolon-Naa Houses. Students lost mattresses, books, uniforms and school supplies.
A fire at the Northern School of Business (NOBISCO) displaced nearly 900 female students, while a Dec. 2, 2025, blaze at Kadjebi-Asato Senior High School’s boys’ dormitory left 120 students affected, with approximately 70 collapsing due to shock, panic and smoke inhalation. About 58 students lost all personal belongings.
The most devastating incident occurred Jan. 22, 2025, at Saboba E.P. Senior High School, where a first-year female student died in a dormitory fire. Students reported that the girl was sick and had been locked in the dormitory when the fire broke out, preventing her escape.
“Even last year, one school in Saboba, even a student died because the girl was sick, and they locked her in the dormitory, and it caught fire, and she was not able to escape, and finally the fire burned the person,” Mr. Akumbasi said speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East Show. “So it’s a real concern to all of us.”
Mr. Akumbasi identified three primary causes of the recurring fires plaguing Ghana’s schools.
First, aging infrastructure remains a critical problem. Many schools are 40 to 50 years old, still operating with original electrical wiring that was never upgraded.
“The wiring that were done in those days are still the wires being used,” Akumbasi explained. “These wires are weak. Some of them are actually not up to standard.”
Second, even recently constructed dormitories suffer from safety issues. Contractors seeking to maximize profits often use substandard materials during construction.
“Contractors, in their bid to make supernormal profits, sometimes also use some substandard materials to wire,” he said. “Of course, when people are doing it, they forget that these are our children who are going to stay there.”
Third, students themselves contribute to the problem through illegal electrical connections to charge mobile phones — devices that many schools prohibit but students bring anyway.
“Our own students try to do some illegal connections to charge their phones,” Mr. Akumbasi said. “So sometimes they peel the wires, or they cut and connect the wires, sometimes even send extension coils into the ceilings, and they overload even these extension wires. By the time you know that the thing has heated and is burning, it’s usually too late.”
The problem is particularly acute in northern Ghana, where the dry Harmattan season creates ideal conditions for fires to spread rapidly.
“In northern Ghana, because of our environment, especially at this time with Harmattan, if fire catches an area within 10 minutes, if you don’t get strong fire service presence, the destruction will be unimaginable,” Mr. Akumbasi said.
Mr. Akumbasi emphasized that preventing future fires requires continuous vigilance from school management, particularly housemasters and housemistresses who are responsible for maintaining physical presence in dormitories.
“The strategy is the continuous presence in the dormitories, doing continuous inspection, ensuring that the students don’t come to the school with phones, and we even tell them they don’t want to do illegal connections in order to charge their phones,” he said.
He also called on dormitory captains and house prefects to report violations, noting that students sometimes remain silent when they see peers engaging in dangerous behavior.
“Sometimes, because they are their own colleagues, they are even afraid when they see them doing the wrong thing, forgetting that when the destruction comes, their own properties will also be destroyed,” Mr. Akumbasi said.
A1 Radio | 101.1 Mhz | Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith | Bolgatanga
