GES order to admit dreadlock students disappointing – NAGRAT

The Ghana Education Service (GES) order to admit two first-year students with dreadlocks at the Achimota School to begin their senior high school (SHS) education has been condemned by the President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT).

The authorities of the school are said to have denied admission to the two students who were posted there under the Computer School Placement System (CSSPS) because the rules of the school did not allow students with dreadlocks to be admitted.

The incident generated social media discussion with many describing the incident as ‘human rights abuse’ while others also applauded the school authorities for standing firm for what is right.

In a swift response, officials of GES gave a directive to the school to admit the students.

“We have asked her [headmistress] to admit the students. The student is a Rastafarian and if there is evidence to show that he is Rastafarian, all that he needs to do is to tie the hair neatly,” the Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, told the Daily Graphic.

He added, “So, you cannot say that you will not admit someone on the basis of the person’s religious beliefs and so, we have asked the head to allow the children to be in the school,”

However reacting to this in an interview on Citi TV’s The Big Issue on Saturday, Angel Carbonu said the order from the educational authorities would create future “chaotic situations”.

According to him, allowing students with dreadlocks to disobey school rules would set a bad precedent for anything at all to be accepted in future.

He said, “I disagree with it. I am surprised and very disappointed that the Ghana Education Service bent the rules for these Rastafarians. When the Ghana Education Service begins to make these exceptions, they create chaotic situations in the school for we the teachers to manage. If you stretch the frontiers of this, you will have problems so they didn’t have to limit it to only Rastafarians.

“I disagree with it. I am very disappointed in the management of the GES and I disagree with the directive to the school. The students were in the first place not denied admission. What the school authorities just said as a student of the school you can’t have this hair so cut it”