Rastafarian brouhaha: We are ‘absolutely’ worried about High Court ruling – CHASS

The Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) says it is worried about the ruling of the Human Rights Court on the admission of some two Rastafarian students at the Achimota School.

The High Court in a judgment delivered by Justice Gifty Agyei Addo on Monday, May 31, 2021, ordered Achimota School to admit the two Rastafarian students, Tyrone Marhguy and Oheneba Nkrabea, without having them shave off their dreadlocks.

Commenting on the ruling by the High Court, General Secretary of CHASS, Kwame Owusu- Aduomi, expressed fears over the possible repercussions of the ruling, stating that schools may not be able to enforce any rules on hairstyles.

“…and so for hair, forget it from now onwards because if you do anything parents will take you on. We wouldn’t want the organization that we are working with to be saddled with court cases every day."

"So whatever hairdo that you [students] will wear, we may just have to look on and then move on,” he stated.

Mr. Kwame Owusu-Aduomi also said that CHASS maintains its support for Achimota School stating that “we still standby Achimota School and we really empathize with her[headmistress].”

Meanwhile, the Africa Education Watch says it would be best if the Rastafarian students looked for admission into other schools as they risked being victimized at Achimota School.

“Tyrone’s court case winning is just a good step that will be used to resolving several issues regarding policy in our school so I believe if this is done and he decides not to go to that school and go to another school…

“…that is best because I foresee that the child may not even have the best of school environment, the best of school climate for his studies so for me the ideal thing to do if I were the parent is to look for another school for him,” he added.



Speaking in an interview on Campus Exclusive on Tuesday, Divine Kpe, a Senior Research Fellow with Africa Education Watch shot down assertions that admitting the Rastafarian students will “open the floodgates” for other religious demands by other sects of religious groupings.

He emphasized that those demands be evaluated based on the threat it poses to other stakeholders in the schools.