The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers ( NAGRAT), Angel Carbonou, has called for the Headmistress of the West African Senior High School, Dr Shine Agartha Ofori to be reinstated with immediate effect.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) interdicted the WASS Headmistress over allegations that she billed students inappropriately.

https://myjoyonline.com/west-africa-shs-headmistress-interdicted/

Addressing the press on Thursday, Mr Carbonou said interdicting a headteacher over "complaints made by a parent creates the impression as though they were forced to make payments, does not solve the problems the schools are faced with, rather, “you are just isolating one person and just picking the person as a scapegoat.”

This, he says is because the lack of resources in schools is distributed nationwide and bigger than WASS. Therefore it is “absolutely wrong and unacceptable for heads of schools to be identified individually.”

“We call on the Ghana Education Service to immediately reinstate the headmistress of West African Senior High School and any other headmistresses or headmasters in a similar situation."

He said the contributions of parents towards the running of schools is a common practice in most schools in the country.

“…We have schools names withheld that collect money from parents or parents moblising themselves to contribute money for the upkeep of the school, and we have ministers and government officials whose children attend those schools and they contribute to the payment of these things,” he said.

He explained that the reason some school heads are compelled to bill students is due to lack of resources that ought to be provided by the government.

According to him, the problem that persists stems from government's failure to provide adequate resources to the schools.

He said parents are only filling in the gap by mobilising themselves and contributing to the welfare of schools.

“Resources that are supposed to be sent to the schools by central government are not forthcoming, the resources are not reaching the schools. We have recurrent expenditure to do with the repair and replacement of school furniture, broken infrastructure, electricity bills, water bills, and provision of sanitary materials to keep the school running.

“We also have the need to provide teaching and learning materials to ensure that the purpose for which the students come to school is fulfilled, so when parents visit the schools, school authorities open up the realities of the school to the parents and responsible parents begin to gather themselves through the leadership of the PTA to contribute towards the provisions of some of these things. There are schools that parents contribute to augment the feeding situation,” he added.

According to him, private classes are being held as a result of the distorted school calendar because parents want their children to make up for lost contact hours.

“We should all stop burying our heads in the sand like an ostrich to pretend that everything in the schools are rosy,” he urged.

The President of NAGRAT also entreated the government to engage stakeholders in reviewing the Free Senior High School policy because the schools are rapidly deteriorating.