Builsa South MP Dr Clement Abass Apaak says the Ghana Education Service (GES)’s interdiction of the headmaster of Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) is unnecessary.
He said the decision over the alleged conversion of a toilet facility into a residential accommodation was a bit rushed.
According to the Deputy Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, the GES could have waited and taken the decision after an initial assessment.
The second-term MP in a Citi FM interview on Monday insisted that the GES rushed with the decision.
“I think that the decision to ask the headmaster and the senior housemaster to step aside was a bit rushed.
“I don’t think that was the way to go. The initial assessment could have been done by the regional director, and on the basis of that then a decision could have been taken whether they were culpable in one way or the other to warrant them being asked to step aside,” he said.
The GES has stated that it is conducting a probe into a video on social media showing some students of the school using toilet cubicles as dormitories.
According to a statement issued dated April 16, the Regional Director of Education has asked both the head and senior housemaster to step aside for a thorough investigation.
“The Headmaster and the Senior Housemaster have been directed to step aside to allow for further investigations into the matter by the Regional Director of Education and report back in two weeks,” the statement signed by the Head of the Public Relations Unit, Cassandra Twum Ampofo disclosed.
Furthermore, the statement revealed that the school could accommodate an additional 300 students since records indicated that students enrolled in the school were fewer than the vacancies available.
Meanwhile, the headmaster, Mr Doughlas Haruna Yakubu has dispelled the video footage depicting students sleeping in toilet cubicles as trumped-up.
Mr Yakubu said the school has enough space to accommodate its students and thus there is no reason for students to be kept in toilet cubicles.
In his estimation, the footage was taken with malicious intent to cause public disaffection for the school.
Speaking in an interview with Citi FM on Monday, April 17, Mr Yakubu said the supposed toilet cubicle would not conducive to even accommodating a human being for a day.
According to him, the place is used as storage space when students are going on vacations.
“They are never sleeping places…these materials that you see might have been taken from the dormitory for him [journalist] to cover his videos and leave.
Those cubicles are so tiny and so hot that students cannot live in them. We have enough space, so this is not fair.”
He added that the facility has been in existence since the days of Ghana’s former president, Kwame Nkrumah.
“That facility has been there for so many years, it has never been a dormitory or a storage room, it is a store more or less.
“In the 60s when Kwame Nkrumah built the rooms, they were washrooms, and so they still have the design of washrooms, but the facility has not been modernised.
“So they are just small, small cubicles and that is where we keep our chop boxes when students are travelling,” Mr Yakubu added. “
