'It was like a coup'- Mother of Rastafarian student recounts how GES made U-turn at meeting

Mother of one of the Rastafarian students rejected by Achimota Senior High School, Maanaa Myers, has disclosed the chilling experience she had at an emergency meeting with representatives from the Ghana Education Service (GES) and headmistress of the Achimota Senior High School.

According to her, her expectation prior to the meeting was that there was going to be a compromise in the issue involving her child’s admittance into the school.

“I personally was thinking that they would say for the fact that it is an eyesore for them to have locks on their head, we can put it in a way that is neat and will not offend anyone but then they said no”, she told Samuel Eshun on the Happy Morning Show.

Maanaa related that the authorities both from GES and the Achimota School walked out of the meeting after they had stated their positions.

“It was gross disregard for us. At a point they even walked out on us; both the GES and the headmistress of Achimota. They walked out after they had stated their position.

In fact, the director from GES went to the constitution and then quoted about the child’s right to freedom and asked that so if they say child’s right to freedom does that mean that if the school regulates that the children should sleep at 8:00, the child can say he won’t sleep? To me, it was very ridiculous for him to have said that. Then they also talked about Muslims who would want their girl children to wear Hijab to school. What about that? And if traditionalist want to dress a certain way to school, would that be possible?
It was like a coup, everybody on the panel spoke against us and even the demeanor they came to the meeting with was very intimidating. There was no room for any talk so I don’t even know why they invited us. They just came to tell us their positions”, she narrated.

The mother of the Rastafarian student expressed that she failed to understand why the GES would allow all types of hairstyles at the Junior High level but when it comes to the Senior High level, there were “rules and regulations”.

She shared also that during the meeting, she asked why White students and Caucasian student could keep their long hair but not the Black student. However, none of the authorities could give a response to that.

Background

The issue of Rastafarians made waves in the media as two Rastafarian students were denied admission at the Achimota School on their first day after reporting in dreadlocks.

Subsequently, the Ghana Education Service directed the School to admit these students as the Director-General of the GES, Prof. Kwasi-Opoku Amankwa stated in an interview that no school can deny students admission on the basis of their religion.

However, the GES has made a U-Turn by rescinding its earlier decision while throwing its support to Achimota School for refusing to admit Rastafarian students.