Outgoing headmaster of Wasec attempts to destabilize the school

The disappointing, outgoing headmaster of Wa Senior High School in the Upper West Region, Brother Cosmas Kanmwaa, makes a last-minute desperate, but failed attempt to destabilize the school. He and some of his gullible teachers allegedly wrote a letter headed, A LETTER OF PROTEST, which was then given to the student leadership to send to the Regional Director of Education. The manuscript, however, clearly showed how the said teacher was playing with both his handwriting and grammar to avoid detection. A casual perusal of the letter reveals some of his worst administrative policies which his credulous teachers paradoxically listed as achievement for which the students should protest against his long-awaited transfer.

I find this action a criminal offence. A teacher writing a letter and handing it over to students (some people’s children) to present to educational authorities who took the best and a long overdue decision to remove a malperforming headmaster! And the aim of the letter is to incite violence against the educational authorities who acted positively. Sentence 2 of Paragraph 2 of the said letter reads, ‘This situation has created tension on students and as a result, a few of them do attend classes and we feel that something urgent should be done to help us.’ (The ‘situation’ here refers to the transfer of the headmaster). I ask these questions: Where is the said tension in Wasec? and when did few students ever attend classes? I leave the criminal and unprofessional aspect of this action to GES; teachers have enough in their code of ethics on such issues.

Leaving the bizarre contents of the letter, I go straight to tell you why somebody must explain why this poor-performing headmaster remained at post until his transfer. His 13-month-old headship represents the darkest days in the history of Wasec. Among the innumerable odds executed by Brother Cosmas, the tallest was his blatant refusal to accept the second batch of students who were placed in Wasec. Those educational authorities who placed the students in the school knew that vacancies actually exist there before doing that.

Justifiably, the candidates who left the school during the last WASSCE exams were 999 implying that about 1000 vacancies exist in the school. In the first placement, the school received only 499 students; this number explicitly confirmed the presence of vacancies up to 500 in the school. Based on these statistics, the educational authorities placed a second batch of about 300 students in Wasec. This headmaster refused to accept them. Ironically, the sum of students from both placements (750) would still be less than the number of students who completed last year. Allegedly, authorities from the district and regional education offices appealed to him to accept those students but he refused. Exactly why the educational authorities in the Upper West could not ‘force’ him to admit the students itself is worth investigating. He acted as if the he were a proprietor administering a private school. But thank God, he is given a transfer at last.

His outright rejection of the students has two effects, both on national scale. First, it is yet unclear how and whether the affected students were sent to other schools. Possibly, some of them have never been admitted into any other schools to-date. It was even suggested to him that he could make a request to the education office to post only day students to the school if his problem was the usual congestion in the dormitories. All these, he patently refused and absolutely no body in the district and regional offices as well as the municipal assembly could bring him to order. So, where the affected students are up to date and what GES did to them, this mal-administrator care the less. Surprisingly, wooden beds provided by the govt which were in use during the SSS 4 time were parked out of the dormitory and thrown out to lie and rot in the Sun. The said beds are still lying behind House 4 (New Block).

Second, the refusal to admit the students automatically rendered some teachers redundant in the school. The reversal to a 3-year senior high school system meant that all the teachers handling Form 4 had no classes to teach. (Only an increased intake of first years could put these teachers into classes.) Consequently, over 32 teachers in Wasec are occupying bungalows and receiving salaries without doing anything job. The reasons why he unsuccessfully released them to other schools are only known to him. All the educational authorities, including the Upper West Regional Director, are fully aware of these committed teachers who have been rendered artificially redundant.

Just last term, teaching began as late as the sixth week because of his vague leadership. This delay was because the headmaster himself got stranded halfway and could no longer release some of the teachers he openly declared redundant—a comment he made as if the school is his bona fide property. It was therefore by choice that some few teachers were teaching until the sixth when classes then begun.

The most precarious legacy of this outgoing head is the factionalization of the staff. Those few immature teachers who kowtowed to the demands of the transfer-bound head are permanently separated from the other good thinking teachers. Evidence of this factionalization cropped up when he clandestinely constituted a committee which used some mysterious criterion to reallocated bungalows halfway just this term. Again, it remains weird and sickening why Bro Cosmas and his bootlicking subordinates wanted to execute such a plan at the wrong time—perhaps to give him a full opportunity to operationalize his immoral nocturnal activities. Professionally, a Herculean task lies ahead of the incoming headmaster as to how he/she shall reunite the factions left behind.

Since assumption of post in January 2013, Bro Cosmas froze staff incentive. During the time of his predecessor (Mr Jonas Maare), these allowances were paid termly. This non-payment generated ill-feeling among teachers. Eventually, when he heard that some teachers openly expressed their misgivings about his not paying the monies, he once more put forward a mystifying criterion for sharing the money. Typically and expectedly, he and his susceptible faction backed down their criterion immediately when positive thinking teachers heartily objected to it at that meeting—a meeting that was mostly likely his last one as the head of Wasec. The history behind his headship from the previous schools to Wasec is enough to inform authorities to better relocate him to the office where he will be under constant monitoring.

Purportedly a Brother, Cosmas Kanmwaa was always seen in his hot shorts sitting among student girls. Apart from secretly touching their vital organs, he would be telling them, ‘I’ll marry you!, I’ll marry you!, I’II marry you!’. At the reopening of school, he used to go and stand at the main gate. His reason was to welcome the students. At the gate, he often surprised every one by openly and shockingly hugging nearly every female student who arrived (no wonder the girls were the first to be told of his transfer). He ordered the East Gate on the Danko road to be permanently closed so that every student passed through the main gate where remained self-planted during reopening and occasionally on Saturdays. To avoid his open advances, some of the female students resorted to reporting late at night.

To orchestrate his immoral activities, Bro Cosmas organized what he termed Student Durbars. These so-called durbars were organized at night during which he prepared some students to openly talk ill about those teachers who were suspicious of him and thus challenged his weird style of headship. How long is the nighttime study period for any effective durbar to be organized? Students were given the chance to mention teachers’ names and to openly ridicule them. What kind of administration was this? These are just but some of the challenges ahead of the incoming headmaster.

To the amazement the teachers, he ordered that all the old vehicles of the school be towed away one day without any prior notice. In contrast, during the last time when old-school cars were to be sold, his predecessor, Mr Jonas Maare, made this auction sales known at a staff meeting. Interested teachers bought some of those vehicles. But this time round, he, behaving as if the school is a kingdom he inherited, single-handedly negotiated the sale or relocation of the vehicles—another issue the incoming head needs to look at.

Whilst it still shocks me why Bro Cosmas overstayed here in Wasec, I wish him the Lord’s guidance at least for his life to be reformed to befit the title preceding his name. I’m urgently appealing to the authorities to appoint and post a more competent person to Wasec.

Written by: Mr. Ali Justice