The headmistress of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Senior High School (KNUST SHS) has been interdicted after the death of a student at her school on Tuesday evening.
The headmistress, Felicia Asamoah Dankwaa, was accused of negligence by her students who went on to demonstrate and vandalise her car.
A statement from the Ghana Education Service (GES) said the Regional Director of Education in the Ashanti Region will take over her duties.
Meanwhile, academic activities are expected to resume at the school tomorrow following the protests.
There is heavy police presence at the school to quell the protests.
Officials from the Ashanti Regional Directorate of the GES have been at the school to ensure calm is restored.
Speaking to journalists after meeting the management of the school, the Ashanti Regional Director of the GES, Mary Owusu Achiaw, said: “classes will begin tomorrow, by which time we hope the school will have returned to normal.”
“Everything is under control. Their wards are in safe hands. Every parent should rest assured that their wards are in good hands,” Mrs. Achiaw added.
She also said investigations have begun into the matter.
The students’ account
According to the students, their deceased colleague, who is believed to have had an ulcer, was ill was not attended to adequately by the school authorities for multiple hours.
They believe the authorities feared he had contracted the novel coronavirus and left him till he died.
One of the students recounted that “the senior housemaster told his [the deceased boy’s] friends to leave him alone. He told them to sanitise their hands and asked them why they were holding the boy and gave them a plot to weed [as punishment].”
The students also accused the headmistress of also not handling the situation with any urgency.
“The headmistress herself came to stand in front of this boy and the boy was rolling on the floor for more than four hours. They couldn’t call any car to take him to the hospital.”
