Achimota-Rasta students' case: This ruling changes nothing, except that students can do as they wish now - Angel Cabornu

• The Human Rights Court gave a landmark ruling yesterday in favour of a Rastarian boy, against the Achimota School, for denying him admission on grounds of his hairstyle

• The NAGRAT president, one of the advocates for the boy and his colleagues to be kept out of the school, says this ruling does not change much

• He said that instead, the ruling means that there is the freedom for all students in all SHSs to do as they please

Following the landmark ruling by the Human Rights Court on the case brought to it by a Rastafarian student, Tyrone Marhguy, against the Achimota School for turning him away after he appeared at the school in dreadlocks, the NAGRAT president, Angel Carbonu says they are indifferent about the ruling.

Being someone who was in full support of the Achomota School’s decision not to admit the boys because of their hair, he explained that this decision by the court doesn’t bother them although it truncates their quest to reform students’ characters through the enforcement of specific codes of conduct in various schools, reports citinewsroom.com.

He added that the ruling rather sets the precedence that students in various schools now have the liberty to dress as they please.

“What the judgement means is that the Rasta students and all other students can dress any way and go to school, and we teachers do not have to waste our time and energy talking about character formation. We thank the court for making our work easy.

“Someone wears rasta, you should also be able to wear your cap or hat. We really do not care about that in any way. We do not care about character formation because our professional understanding of character formation has been truncated by a court ruling and you want us to care. We are going to obey the court ruling” he said.

The National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT) president was part of groups and individuals who opposed the idea that the two Rastafarian boys should be admitted to the Achimota School.

In an earlier suggestion, he called for the Rastafarians to set up their own schools in Ghana if they want their children to keep their dreadlocks in Senior High Schools (SHS).

“I don’t even know why the Rastafarians don’t have their own schools, because they’ve been in this country [Ghana] for a very long time,” Angel Carbonu had said earlier.

The two, Tyrone Marhguy and Oheneba Nkrabea, had been refused admission into the Achimota School because they refused to shave off their dreadlocks, as required by the school.

This was notwithstanding the fact that they had passed their qualifying examinations, and, had been selected into the school through the computerized placement system.

Unhappy with the decision, Tyrone took the matter up in court while the Attorney General represented the school, arguing that allowing the students into the school will have dire consequences on the school’s discipline, health, tradition, and community cohesion.

Justice Gifty Agyei Addo however disagreed, ruling that the Attorney-General failed to provide a legal justification as to why the rights of the two Rastafarian students to education should be limited on the basis of their dreadlocks.

Subsequently, the argument of the Attorney General changed to the claim that the Rastafarian students had not even completed or returned their acceptance of admission forms and could thus not be deemed to have been denied the admission.

But for the students, their parents, and lawyers, this was simply a case of a breach of fundamental rights on the basis of their religion and religious practices.

Unconvinced either, Justice Gifty Adjei Addo consequently directed Achimota School to admit the two Rastafarian students.