The Ministry of Education will establish a direct reporting channel for students, parents and other stakeholders to report abuse and serious misconduct in educational institutions, Deputy Education Minister Dr Clement Apaak has announced. The channel will let complainants bypass existing Ghana Education Service (GES) structures when they believe their concerns are not being handled promptly.
The announcement follows allegations of sexual abuse involving the headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School (SHTS) and about 19 female students, a case that has raised questions about how school authorities and education officials handled the reports.
Dr Apaak disclosed that neither the Minister nor his office had been informed of the allegations and attributed the failure to weaknesses within the GES.
“We would now open a channel so that students, parents and other stakeholders who know about some of these occurrences in our various institutions of academic pursuits, whether it is primary school, junior high school, secondary school, university, colleges of education, they should be able to bypass the structures if they feel that the current structures are not responsive in a timely fashion to petition the Minister directly or my good self, and we will take it up.”
Deputy Education Minister Dr Clement Apaak
Dr Apaak explained that the proposed channel will cover institutions from primary schools to universities and colleges of education. Anyone with knowledge of abuse or serious misconduct will be able to petition the Minister or the Deputy Minister directly, instead of relying on the GES chain of command.
The arrangement responds to a specific concern. Under current practice, complaints must first move through school, municipal and regional offices. When those offices fail to act, the matter may never reach the Ministry’s leadership.
“There is a systemic challenge insofar as the GES structure is concerned. And that systemic challenge is not based on procedure, but it is coming across as though there is inertia or a refusal to act on matters of this nature and/or to bring matters of this nature to ultimate authorities.”
Deputy Education Minister Dr Clement Apaak
The Deputy Minister’s remark places the focus on how officials responded, not on the absence of procedures for reporting.
Ministry Leadership Was Not Informed
Dr Apaak disclosed that neither the education minister nor his own office received any report of the allegations, even though indications suggest that officials at the municipal and regional levels had prior knowledge. He insisted that early notice would have prompted early action.
He questioned why the Obuasi Municipal Director of Education and the Ashanti Regional Director of Education had known about the allegations without the information reaching the Ministry’s leadership in good time.
Background to the Obuasi SHTS Case
The allegations came to public attention through an investigation by JoyNews and journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni. Following the report, the headmaster was interdicted and a criminal investigation was directed.
The investigation indicated that complaints had reached officials at the school and municipal levels earlier in the year. In March, five students reportedly took their allegations to the Municipal Education Directorate. Further incidents were allegedly reported in June and July.
The education think tank Eduwatch has since urged an independent, external investigation to examine the actions of all officials who may have enabled the alleged abuse to continue.
Sanctions for Officials Who Failed in Their Duties
Dr Apaak announced that the Ministry would pursue appropriate sanctions against officials found to have failed in their duties. He did not name the officials who could face action, and he gave no timeline for opening the new channel.
The Ministry has also not yet explained how complaints made through the channel will be received, recorded and tracked. Those details will determine whether the arrangement gives students and parents a route they can trust.
For now, the proposal signals a shift in approach. Instead of relying only on the GES to pass complaints upward, the Ministry intends to open a path that reaches its leadership directly. Whether the channel delivers faster action will depend on how quickly it is set up and how the Ministry handles the first complaints it receives.
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