Achimota Preparatory-GES brouhaha: PTA to petition Akufo-Addo over impasse

Parents who enrolled their wards at the Achimota Preparatory School will later this morning, Wednesday, petition President Akufo-Addo over the recent tussle between the school and the Ghana Education Service (GES).

They are hoping that the president will intervene in the matter and help resolve their differences.

The Vice Chairman of the school’s Parents-Teacher Association, Bernard Anaba in a Citi News interview said, “on Wednesday we will be going to the Jubilee House. We will petition the president as well and of course we will also be pursuing the court issue”.

The association on Tuesday petitioned the Speaker of Parliament, Alban Bagbin through the Okaikwei North Member of Parliament “to look into it and possibly investigate why they [GES] had to unleash the police on our children and also why they took such an action because they had no court order.”

Citi News reported last Friday that officials of the Ghana Education Service in the Okaikwei North District had locked up offices and classrooms of the Achimota Preparatory School following a court order received by the GES to take over the management of the school.

The ruling was said to have been given on March 2020, according to a statement from the GES.

But the parents say there is no proof of the claim.

About 40 parents on Tuesday morning besieged the premises of the school to demand justice over what they describe as the unfair and arbitrary closure of the school by armed police officers and officials of the Ghana Education Service.

Most of the parents who spoke to Citi News expressed their disappointment in the Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa who they said sanctioned the takeover of the school in a way that terrorised pupils who were in class at the time.

The parents, who were later dispersed by personnel of the Achimota Police Station, said the GES has no legitimacy to take over the institution.

“I didn’t know what was going on until my son came home crying that policemen with guns are all over the school and the school has been locked… The boy was frightened. He is only 12 years old, and he is mourning his father. I have lost my husband and he hasn’t overcome that yet and you people came to the school with the police. The case is in court so if you claim you won, do you have to come to school to attack the children?” a parent said.