'Parents on our necks to come for their wards' – School proprietress

The Proprietress of Pinks and Blues International School, Gifty Hammond, has said parents are on the necks of private schools to return their wards to the classroom.

She stated on Accra FM’s morning show on Tuesday, 1 September that the parents are complaining about the long stay of their children at home, especially as Ghana’s fight against the COVID-19 pandemic appears to have brought the disease under some appreciable level of control.

In his 16th COVID-19 address to the nation on Sunday, 30 August 2020, President Nana Akufo-Addo said the Ghana Education Service, after further consultations, has decided to postpone the remainder of the academic year for all nursery, kindergarten, primary, JHS 1 and SHS 1 students”.

“The next academic year will resume in January 2021, with appropriate adjustments made to the curriculum, to ensure that nothing is lost from the previous year”, the President announced.

He said: “The relevant dispositions will also be made so that the presence, at the same time, in school of all streams of students, can occur in safety”.

The President said: “I appreciate fully the inconvenience and the financial burden the continued stay at home of children are posing to parents and guardians”.

According to him, “these are a necessary price to pay in our efforts to protect the lives of our children, as well as to limit and contain the spread of the virus in our country”.

However, the proprietress said that decision does not inure to the benefit of private schools as well as parents whose children are in such schools.

“I’m telling you the parents are on our necks to come for their children and bring them back to school”, she told Prah Jr.

“The parents say the children are costing them more money at home than in school”, she claimed.

She said the “parents were initially afraid to have their kids in school when the pandemic broke but now that the prevalence of the virus is abating and businesses are returning to normal, they are on our necks; they are willing to actually bring the children, especially when they realised proper measures have been put in place to take care of their children such as splitting their academic activities, not crowding them too much and spacing them up; they are ready, they are willing, they are on our necks … so, times have changed and we have to adapt and go accordingly”.

She also noted that the children are even more at risk at home than at school.