The Blowout At Apam Sec. School

The strike action which exploded at Apam Secondary School Monday, this week is still going on, disrupting teaching and confirming earlier reports by this paper of the decaying state of the school and the horror tactics of the headmistress, a woman with known strong political patronage.

The 60 plus-strong teachers ran out of patience following the intervention of the Minister for Girl Child Education, Ms. Christine Churcher, following a request from the Government after angry teaching staff bypassed the Minister of Education and pushed a petition through Presidential Spokesman Mr. Kwabena Agyepong.

They were demanding the removal of the headmistress from the school.

One of the known causes of yesterday's strike action is the disagreement over report proposed by Ms. Churcher that the headmistress be allowed to stay in office till the end of the academic year.

They feel threatened and hold the view that the headmistress is capable of using the two terms at her disposal to completely destroy their files and scheme for her continued stay in the school as she had successfully done a few times in the past.

Chronicle inquiries show that the students support the striking teachers as the continued stay of the headmistress will impact negatively on their academic performance since the open confrontation between the pro-Esther Hamilton and anti-Esther Hamilton factions is a recipe for problems.

Reports say that 19 staffers support Mrs. Hamilton against more than 60 against..

They expressed lack of confidence in the sense of objectivity in the Minister of Education because the Professor, a former Director of the Ghana Education Service, had helped prop up Mrs. Hamilton despite official directive that the headmistress should be transferred to Amasaman.

Chronicle confirmed this with the Minister in earlier investigations into a series of allegations and charges of impropriety.

The school Board is chaired by Mr. Jude Bucknor, formerly of CAL Merchant Bank.

The board members include the Chief Apam, one time teacher of the school and a frequent visitor and pal of the Headmistress, a Cert A teacher, an NPP local strong man.

There are allegations that he is not qualified to teach in the school.

The Pro Vice Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast is also a member of the Board, but amazingly the school has not had a functioning Parents Teachers Asssociation (PTA) for almost eight years, with Mrs. Hamilton as Chairperson of the hurriedly re-constituted PTA that was cobbled together last October.

The School's board which includes a Director of GES, Mr. Esuman, in charge of the PMU division has been almost complicit.

It was Mr. Essuman who helped lobby against her transfer and may have influenced the current Director of GES to dream up a completely puerile reason against her transfer last year.

They officially told the Chronicle that her transfer was blocked for 'national security' reasons.

Ms. Churcher, Chronicle gathered, met with the teachers separately during her fact finding visits, and later met with the teachers and the headmistress together at which Mrs. Hamilton feared by the teaching staff was told some 'bitter truths' in the presence of the Minister.

She was shocked, said one source present at the meeting.

Other Secondary Schools in the country are best with similar problems that are waiting to implode.

Chronicle has been monitoring and will come out in due course.

The state of the school is deplorable and can be referred to as the Biblical White Stones.

There are 1,200 plus student girls crowded in their various dormitories with their trunks on the verandah and have only two KVIPS for use.

Most of them queue for close to an hour.

The school kitchen is in a very bad state, most of the pots used for cooking have holes under them, thus food served is almost always not properly cooked.

Apart from this the food is also of very bad quality, and it has been reported that on one occasion soup meant for the whole school contained only six small pieces of tuna. (Opoku).

Disused school furniture is sometimes used for cooking as the school has been without gas for many years and firewood is always in short supply.

Meanwhile, Chronicle has learnt that the regional director of education whose latest attempt to resolve the crisis proved futile has given the striking teachers a ten-day ultimatum to call off their strike or face the consequencies.

The chief of Apam, a close pal of the headmistress, has reportedly said that the school is for the people of Apam and so the teachers should go away if they can't teach.