Achimota School discriminating against Rasta students - Fmr UDS Pro-VC

A former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the University for Development Studies (UDS), Professor David Millar has slammed Achimota School for discriminating against two Rastafarian students.

According to Prof. Millar, it is unfair for the school to admit some foreign students with long hair and refuse admission to Ghanaian students with dreadlocks.

“You can tell the students to wear their hair but try and keep it neat. It would have been objective and fair if the school had said at their entrance that all those coming to school, cut your hair and enter,” Prof Millar said on Morning Starr on Tuesday.

He added “we know products of that school who have ended up becoming Rastafarians after school. They weren’t Rastafarians in school yet they became one after school. You can’t allow someone with long hair to enter and then prevent someone who’s wearing dreadlocks, that’s discrimination…the total image of that school is being questioned. Is it a school for a selected few?.”

Prof Millar also suggested that the wearing of dreadlocks or rasta hair is not the sole preserve of any religion in the world.

He argued that dreadlocks predated Rastafarianism and has only been adopted by the group as their image.

“For me, I don’t see the direct relationship between dreadlocks and religion because historically dreadlocks precede religion…Rasta hair is not synonymous with any religion, it has only been adopted by a religious group as their image.”

“For me, the discourses are not well-positioned. They should come out and say what’s fundamentally wrong in wearing dreadlocks and convince some professors who wear dreadlocks that it’s a bad thing.”

The Ghana Education Service (GES) over the weekend directed the headmistress of Achimota School to admit the two teenage students whose admissions were withdrawn due to their dreadlocks.

The directive followed an intense and sustained online protest against the decision of the Achimota school authorities.

But after a crunch meeting on Monday, the Headmistress of Achimota school rejected the directive stating that either the parents compromise on their religious beliefs and allow their children to take off the deadlocks or students will be refused admission to the school.