Remove 150-yr-old rules in senior high schools – Kofi Asare

The Executive Director of the Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare says it is uncalled for to talk about fasting in schools when there are very pressing issues confronting the students including poor infrastructure.

According to him, the country is at crossroads in respect of the execution of rules in schools. He described as poor judgement the archaic rules in our schools system after 100 years of promulgation.

“We need to begin to examine the rules of engagement in these schools and examine the extent to which they are relevant in the light of modernity, diversity and today’s world. We are talking about a rule that was promulgated about 150 years ago and the school is saying that the rule is twice older than Ghana and you cannot do away with it because the rule is to serve a purpose to ensure that your child is disciplined and he must eat and eat at where they have to eat and the time they have to eat”.

His comment follows a standoff that have ensued between the Ghana Education Service, GES and Methodist Church Ghana, managers of the Wesley Girls Senior High School after the GES directed authorities of the school to allow Muslim students to fast.

Mr. Kofi Asare who was reacting to the turn of event on the 3FM’s Sunrise Morning Show further observed that Wesley Girls cannot defy GES orders, explaining that Ghana is at crossroads.

“It’s time to standardize the rules that govern our schools. The agency that is responsible to ensure that every Ghanaian of school going enroll in secondary schools is GES so if you arrogate such powers to senior high schools to determine how they should be governed and inarticulate them to the extent that they have the right to reject the advice of you the supervising agency, then it means you have set up a governance system which is in congruence with yours”.