Fear GES – Kwaku Azar tells Ghanaians

Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare, a.k.a Kwaku Azar, has admonished Ghanaians to fear the Ghana Education Service (GES) due to their changing voices in the Achimota Secondary School dreadlocks controversy.

According to the Accounting Professor, the U-turn of the GES is “intriguing and perplexing”.

Kwaku Azar in a post on his social media timeline questioned the GES' reversal thus:

“Was the initial directive based on something? If yes, why the reversal? If no, why the initial directive? Who called whom?”

Kwaku Azar noted that educating the youth does not require that “we disturb their religious right”.

“Quite the contrary, the insistence that Rastafarians abandon their dreads as a condition precedent to their being educated is in itself miseducation,” he said.

The GES on Saturday instructed authorities of the Achimota School in Accra to admit the two first-year students it had rejected because they wore dreadlocks.

The directive followed the massive debate on social media after reports that the school had refused to admit the children although the GES had through its selection system offered them the school.

Many commentators were not pleased with the school’s decision not to admit the students even though the constitution demands that no person should be discriminated against.

Professor Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa, Director-General of GES told the Daily Graphic in reference to one of the students: “We have asked her [headmistress] to admit the students. The student is a Rastafarian and if there is evidence to show that he is Rastafarian, all that he needs to do is to tie the hair neatly. So, you cannot say that you will not admit someone on the basis of the person's religious beliefs and so, we have asked the head to allow the children to be in the school.”

But the GES on Monday, 22 March, backtracked on their earlier directive.