Trouble brews at Ghana National

Teachers at the Ghana National College in Cape Coast are up in arms against the headmaster of the school, Robert Koomson-Barnes, over the manner in which has been steering the affairs of the college since he took over almost eight years ago.

Most of them have thus laid down their tools and asked for the immediate removal of the headmaster before they would resume work.

This follows a motion tabled by three of the academic staff of the school including Jonathan Kodwo Aggrey, the welfare chairman, Nana Akomea, a French tutor and Wisdom Apedo, a chemistry tutor, to the Ministry of Education on behalf of their colleagues.

In the said motion, which was captioned ‘No Confidence in Mr Robert Koomson-Barnes’, copies of which were sent to the Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), the Board of Governors, Chairman of the Parent Teachers Association (PTA), president of the past students association and other interest groups, the trio gave reasons why they wanted the headmaster out.

Some of them included financial malpractices, incompetence and the sinking image of the once proud school.

The teachers also accused him of running a one man show at the college since he had hijacked several monies including house dues and donations made to the school, running into thousands of Cedis.

When the paper reached him for his comments, Mr. Koomson-Barnes hanged up and switched off his mobile phone in order to avoid answering questions about allegations leveled against him.

The teachers specifically mentioned a cash donation of GH¢1,000 by Rex Danquah, the chairman of the CAN 2008 Local Organising Committee (LOC) to the Physical Education (PE) department in the year 2008, which the headmaster failed to record in the school’s accounts books.

Another GH¢2,500 was said to have been collected by the headmaster without the knowledge of the college accountant.

Mr Koomson-Barnes is also alleged to have collected an amount of GH¢1,000 from the school’s accountant during the centenary celebration of Ghana’s first President, Dr Kwame Nkrumah, under the pretext of using it to refresh staff of the school but he never did.

When the teachers queried him about the issue, the headmaster was said to have given a flimsy excuse that the he had misplaced the money.

Another issue that compelled the teachers to ask for the headmaster’s removal has to do with what they described as academic stagnation, as evidenced in the current poor performance of students.

“During 2005-2006, English Language students produced very distressing results. Out of 878 candidates, none obtained A. 570 candidates obtained F despicably in Cape Coast. But also Integrated Science, Mathematics and Social Studies (particularly Economics) registered sorrowful passes and shameful failures at Ghanacoll,” the teachers said.

Out of the total of 530 final year students who sat for the 2007-2007 examinations, they noted that “no one had grade A1 or B2 in English. Only two candidates had grade B2 in integrated science, no one had A1.”

For this and other reasons, they said “the credibility of the headmaster in the eyes of staff and students can be pegged to second-fiddle secondary schools. His incompetence and performance, from year to year in relation to the academic success of his students is highly questionable.”

The disgruntled teachers therefore urged the Minister of Education, the Director General of GES and other stakeholders “to rally a coordinated effort to the quick appointment of a dynamic headmaster.”