Gowrie SHS Demands removal of Headmistress

Bolgatanga, July 22, GNA - Students of the Gowrie Senior High Technical School are calling for the removal of the Headmistress, Mrs Margaret Akparibo, and threatened not to go back to school if their demand is not met.

A statement read by the President of the Student Representative Council of the School, Master Abdulai Buyari, at a press conference alleged that students without National Health Insurance Cards were denied food in the dinning hall.

"If the Ministry of Education and the Regional Directorate of Education fail to remove the headmistress from the School we will not go back to school," the statement said.

The Headmistress rejected the allegations levelled against her and said they were not true and that some tutors instigated the students to demonstrate.

Students of the school went on a demonstration on July 07 during which two tutors were injured school property was damaged. The school was closed down temporarily.

A committee set up to investigate the causes of the demonstration has not yet submitted its report.

The statement alleged that students were charged unreasonable fees without explanation and cited an instance where computer study fees were charged twice in a year and that out 15 computers only five of them were working.

The students alleged that they were fed with bad food and that since they came from mid terms the meat that was given them was rotten.

They said the Headmistress had refused to stay on the school campus and was staying at the Bolgatanga Senior School, her former school, where her husband stays, thus wasting fuel in travelling to Gowrie from Bolgatanga.

They also alleged that whilst students were made to answer objective questions at the West Africa Senior School Certificate Examination, the Headmistress had come out with a policy that they would not be made to answer objective questions but only essays.

The students said whenever one committed a minor offence he or she was made to either dig holes or made go long distances to pick stones, thus missing classes.

Mrs Akparibo said the decision to ensure that the students got National Health Insurance Cards was that students fell sick often on school campus and the management of the school sometimes had to foot the bills and to retrieve the money was a problem.

She said the decision of the Management of the school to disallow the students to write objective papers was to improve upon the academic standard of the school that had fallen.

The Headmistress said it was not true that school management prepared bad food for the students and those meals were those of other school.

She said the school did not charge fees anyhow as alleged by the students but levies fees approved by the Ghana Education Service and Parent/Teacher Association.