The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) is demanding the immediate reversal of the directive from the Ghana Education Service ordering authorities of the Achimota School to admit two Rastafarian students.
According to the NAGRAT, the directive is a threat to conformity and discipline in schools adding that “conformity is part of training”.
The Ghana Education Service in a statement ordered the school to admit the students.
However, NAGRAT disagrees with the directive of the service.
“When you go to any senior high school everything that is done is aimed at ensuring discipline. NAGRAT disagrees totally with the position of GES and we are calling on the Ghana Education Service to redirect the headmistress and the staff of Achimota Senior High School to ensure that the rules and regulations of the school and indeed any other school is abided by every student.
The School is not a fashion environment, the school is not an environment to exhibit one’s religious beliefs. The school is an environment for training and conformity is part of training and we expect every student to abide by the rules of the school.” Angel Carbonu stated,
Mr. Carbonu insisted that human rights are better to ensure in an environment of rules and regulation.
“The school has the right to make rules for its students” he noted.
Citing a Jamaican court ruling in 1985, he said a court ruled that “since the child is a minor, the child ought to obey the school rules”.
“We cannot turn our school into an amorphous deregulated institution where people’s whims and caprices hold sway. The school is not a fashion environment, it is not an environment to exhibit one’s religious beliefs, the school is an environment for training” he noted.
A parent of one of the affected students, Ras Aswad Nkrabea, last week expressed his displeasure over the issue on social media.
“The school authorities denied two brilliant dreadlocked students from being admitted, after having been posted there by the Computer School Placement System. My son was one of the affected children and the other student was also refused on the same grounds,” the disappointed father narrated in a Facebook post.
This sparked public uproar with a section of Ghanaians slamming the school for discriminating against the students.
Source: Mynewsghana
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