Catholic Church demands respect of partnership agreement from Ghana Education Service

The Most Reverend Gabriel Justice Yaw Anokye, Catholic Metropolitan Archbishop of Kumasi has blamed the Ghana Education Service (GES) for acting in bad faith by posting a non-Catholic to head its school without due consultations.

He said they also found it strange that after transferring teachers in Catholic schools under GES’ staff rationalization programme, non-Catholic teachers were being re-posted to these same schools by the GES.

Most Rev Anokye was addressing a media conference held by the Church in Kumasi to convey its objection to the GES over what he termed as “GES’s unilateral actions” regarding the management of mission schools.

The protest was necessitated by the recent appointment of a Presbyterian to head its Saint Jerome Senior High School (SHS) at Abofour, in the Offinso Municipality, by the GES.

Most Rev Anokye said, GES’s action was completely unacceptable and breached the partnership deal between the State and the mission.

“Breaching the partnership agreement of 1999, under which the faith-based educational units are clothed with the power to monitor, post and transfer teachers with the consent of the Directors of Education could mar the relationship between the government and the Church,” he cautioned.

Archbishop Anokye explained that while they, particularly, had no difficulty with non-Catholic staff being posted to Catholic schools, they required that some level of consultations should be done.

However, he said, they preferred Catholics heading their education institutions to non-Catholics because the latter were oblivious of the Church’s principles and philosophy upon which the schools were established and ran.

Source: GNA