A JoyNews Research review has tracked at least 44 cases of teachers and heads of schools accused of sexually abusing students since January 2015, with heads of schools now behind four in every ten new cases. The review drew on news reports, court records and statements from the Ghana Education Service (GES).

The tally covers the period from January 2015 to October 14, 2026, and includes public, private and Arabic schools at basic and senior high level. The 44 cases involve at least 53 teachers and heads, because some cases implicate more than one teacher. Every accused teacher who could be identified is a man.

The figures come as GES on Wednesday interdicted Zakaria Abdulai, headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School, over alleged sexual misconduct involving students, after Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu ordered his suspension following a JoyNews investigation.

Mr Abdulai is the eighth head of school in the dataset, and the fourth since January 2025. Between 2015 and 2024, heads featured in four of 34 cases, about one in ten. Since January 2025, they have featured in four of 10.

In September 2025, GES removed Charles Akwasi Aidoo, assistant headmaster for academics at KNUST SHS in Kumasi, after a viral video allegedly showed him fondling a female student. Gender Minister Dr Agnes Naa Momo Lartey said at the time, "We are collaborating with the police to effect the arrest of the man." No arrest has been reported.

A month later, the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit (DOVVSU) arrested Isaac Okyere, headmaster of Prevailing Academy at Supom Dunkwa in the Shama District, over allegations that he made a 17-year-old former student pregnant and arranged an abortion. In December 2025, GES directed Joshua Vidzro, headmaster of Dzodze-Penyi SHS in the Ketu North Municipality, to step aside after a final-year student alleged he made her pregnant and threatened her when she refused an abortion. None of the four cases involving heads since 2025 has been resolved.

Alleged pregnancy features in three of the eight cases involving heads, against four of the 36 involving classroom teachers. Only two heads have been convicted: Musa Mumuni of Ping Basic School in the Upper West Region, jailed for 10 years in 2018 for defiling a 10-year-old pupil, and George Agyekum, head of a private school near Dansoman in Accra, jailed for 15 years in 2022 for defiling a 15-year-old. No head of a senior high school has been convicted.

Half of all the cases, 22, were recorded in the four coastal regions of Greater Accra, Western, Central and Volta. Greater Accra leads with nine cases, followed by Ashanti with seven, and Eastern and Western with six each. Central has five, Savannah three, and Volta and Upper West two each, while Northern, Upper East, Oti and Western North have one each.

The coastal lead reflects the courts as much as the classrooms. Eight of Greater Accra's nine cases involve the defilement of young pupils in basic schools, most of which reached the public through the Accra Circuit Court. Six of the 12 convictions in the dataset came from just two courts, in Accra and Tarkwa.

Ashanti presents a different picture. All seven of its cases are in senior high schools, among them the 2018 Ejisuman SHS scandal, in which nine teachers were interdicted and four later sacked, rape interdictions at St Louis SHS and Kumasi Girls SHS the same year, and two cases at Obuasi SHTS, including the dismissal of housemaster Seth Amponsah in 2019. None of the Ashanti cases has ended in a criminal conviction.

Measured against population, the Savannah Region records the highest rate, with three cases among roughly 650,000 people. Four regions, Bono, Bono East, Ahafo and North East, have no reported cases at all, which JoyNews Research attributes to thin coverage rather than safer schools.

Of the 44 cases, 12 ended in a criminal conviction and eight in dismissal by GES. One conviction, of a Takoradi primary school teacher jailed for 20 years in 2016, was overturned on appeal. The remaining 23 cases, more than half, have no reported verdict or final sanction.

Convictions are concentrated in basic schools. Eleven of the 12 involve basic school pupils aged between seven and 15, with sentences ranging from three years for indecent assault to 18 years for defilement. The median sentence is 12 years. In July this year, the Odumase-Krobo Circuit Court jailed Akosombo teacher Hondana Mensah for 12 years, eight days after he defiled a 12-year-old pupil during private lessons at her home.

Senior high schools have produced only one conviction. Ernest Ocloo, a mathematics teacher at Sawla SHS, was arrested in 2019 and jailed for 15 years by a Tamale High Court jury in May 2022 for raping a student. Once a student reaches 16, the age of consent, convictions all but disappear: one of the seven cases involving students aged 16 or older ended in prison.

GES discipline has also gone quiet. All eight dismissals in the dataset were announced in 2018 and 2019, six of them in a single list released in November 2018. Since 2019, JoyNews Research has found no reported dismissal of a teacher for sexual misconduct, and recent cases have ended at interdiction with no published outcome.

In June this year, GES interdicted a teacher at Bole SHS in the Savannah Region after a viral video allegedly showed sexual misconduct with a final-year student in the school's science laboratory. "We immediately interdicted the man because it is a serious matter," Director-General Professor Ernest Kofi Davis said, adding that the teacher's salary had been stopped after he absconded. He remained at large as of July 1.

The number of reported cases peaked in 2018, with 15, the year GES itself named and dismissed teachers. From 2019 to 2024, the record held at three or fewer cases a year, with none in 2020, when schools were shut for most of the year. The count doubled to six in 2025, and 2026 has recorded four by mid-October.

How cases come to light has also shifted. Between 2015 and 2019, GES announcements exposed eight cases. Since then, the service has exposed one: a Tamale JHS teacher interdicted in 2022. Five of the six senior high school cases recorded in 2025 and 2026 surfaced through a phone video, a student speaking out or a journalist.

Five cases involve private or Arabic schools, all at the basic level, with no regulatory action recorded against any of them. Eight cases involve more than one victim. The largest is at Kulpi R/C JHS in the Savannah Region, where social studies teacher Natogmah Yamousa Otabil was jailed for seven years in 2022 for sexually abusing 18 boys.