The Ghana Education Service has defended why it severely punished the Headmaster of the Nandom SHS in the Upper West Region, Joachim Naah, and interdicted the Headmaster of Adisadel College in Cape Coast, William Kusi-Yeboah.
Joachim Naah was allegedly charging students unapproved fees for the free SHS programme, and also manually admitting students; while William Kusi-Yeboah, has been interdicted, pending the conclusion of investigations into his alleged acts of violations of procedures of the Service.
Head of Communications at the GES, Cassandra Twum, told Citi News the sanctions are consistent with GES’ regulations.
“Before you are admitted into any Senior High now or currently, the person should go through the computerized school selection placement. When you have a student in your school who has not been placed in the school by the system and has been admitted manually by the head, and again the head has also charged the students fees, then for us, it is a pure act of violation of GES’ administrative regulations,” she said.
The GES PRO however clarified the academic calendar of the Double track system under the Free SHS. Cassandra Twum said per the calendar, students would have ample time to adequately prepare for the end of semester exams.
“In the new semester system, the total number of hours to be spent is 1,154, clearly there is an increase of 54hours a year, so it means that each child is going to have more time to study, it is not that they are going to spend 81 days, and a limited time to study, and it is going to affect their learning outcome, it is going to affect their final exams, that is absolutely not the case, ” she said.
The Accountant of the Nandom SHS, Mr. Rudolf Tengepare, has also been moved from office for collecting fees and illegal admission of students under the free SHS programme.
The Central Regional Director of Education has been asked by the Director-General of the GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa to assume temporary responsibility for the management of Adisadel College.
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By: Farida Yusif | citinewsroom.com | Ghana
