Achimota School takeover – Management wants GES to follow due process
The Management and staff of Achimota Preparatory School has asked the Ghana Education Service (GES) to make its intentions clear “if it intends to take over the school.”
It said GES as a government agency seeking to take over the Achimota Preparatory and Junior High School should not hide behind “restructuring the school” as its reason for the action.
In a letter dated December 17, 2019 and signed by Ms Monica Ankrah, the Director of Education in the Greater Accra Region, which copies were made available to the Ghana News Agency (GNA), the GES invited the school’s management to discuss restructuring of the institution on December 23 last year.
The GES, in another letter dated December 27, 2019 written and signed by Ms Ankrah to the school with the heading: “Taking over of the premises of Achimota Preparatory School (APS) by the Ghana Education Services.”
The letter stated that: “Management of the GES Regional Office writes to inform you of the take-over of the premises of the APS on January 27, 2020.”
It, however, assured APS that: “personnel from GES shall be posted to the school. There is therefore no need for any pupil/student to be withdrawn from the school.”
The letter gave APS Management one month to wind up its activities and handover.
However, a visit by GNA to the school on Monday saw management and staff going about their normal duties as classes were in session for more than 700 pupils in the school.
Mr Agbeko Kunutsor, the Acting Headmaster, told the GNA that the school was a legal entity and that there was the need for the due process to be followed to ensure that the staff numbering 54, were adequately compensated ahead of any takeover.
He stressed that since the school was operating with a constitution and also with a management, it would be prudent for GES to follow the needed process if it intended to take over.
He also said claims by GES that the school was for government because it was on state lands or the Achimota Secondary School was wrong since the case was still pending at the court.
Attempts by the GNA to reach the Regional Directorate of GES for their comments was unsuccessful as the officials the GNA interacted said they have not been authorized to speak on the matter.
Achimota Preparatory School was established in 1948 by colonial contractors, who also constructed University of Ghana.
It was later handed over to the Ghanaian Nationals in the 1960s who had their wards in the school and had been managed by the PTA over the years.
Source: GNA