The Ghana Education Service (GES) has reinstated the Head and the Senior House Masters of the Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) in Tamale in the Northern Region.
The two were interdicted, following a media report alleging that a toilet facility had been converted into a dormitory facility for students of GHANASCO. The videos of the GHANASCO students using the toilet cubicles as sleeping areas, went viral and caused public outrage.
Subsequently, a committee was set up to investigate the report after the headmaster denied that no toilet facility had been converted into a dormitory for the male students. Sources at the regional GES office revealed that, the reinstatement follows a recommendation by the committee tasked to investigate the issue.
Recent checks at the school, revealed that the headmaster Douglas Haruna Yakubu and the senior housemaster have both resumed their roles.
History Of GHANASCO Incident
Douglas Haruna Yakubu, the headmaster and Senior Housemaster, by the GES, were asked to step aside for further investigations to be carried out into the matter by the Regional Director of Education, after a video went viral, where some of the students of GHANASCO were seen using washroom cubicles as dormitories.
This led discussions about the incident and how GES reacted to it immediately, without considering any probe into the matter at hand.
The Headmaster however, labelled the viral video, in which some students are seen sleeping in supposed toilet cubicles, as mischievous and a deliberate misrepresentation of facts. He indicated that the viral video was staged and dramatized by a journalist, with motives of denting the image of the school and added that the school has adequate space to accommodate more students and does not need to convert toilet facilities into dormitories, for students.
“That facility has been there for so many years, it has never been a dormitory or a storage room. It is a store, more or less. In the 60’s, when Kwame Nkrumah built the rooms, they were washrooms. And so, they still have the design of washrooms. But the facility has not been modernized, so they are just small-small cubicles. And that is where we keep our chop boxes, when students are traveling.”
Douglas Haruna Yakubu
Dr. Apaak, the Ranking Member of the Education Committee of Parliament, when asked about his take on the headmaster’s reaction that the story was concocted, stated that: “well, that is his rendition? I have seen a press release that there’s going to be an investigation, I believe that the truth will come out. This phenomenon where spaces that ought not to serve as abode for students are being used by students, is not limited to what we are seeing in GHANASCO.”
The journalist, Prince Kwame Tamakloe, who recorded and leaked the video, also told his side of the story. He claimed to have confronted the headmaster with his evidence, before the videos were released. He added that it is disingenuous for the headmaster to claim that students do not sleep in the toilet cubicles.
“The students told me that they have been sleeping there, and I asked for what reason, and they said due to lack of space. The videos that came out of the toilets that have been converted into dormitories, is just a teaser.
“It is unfortunate and funny to hear the headmaster say that it was staged. I went there during the day and picked these shots. If it was staged, I wouldn’t have taken videos of cubicles having mattresses and others not having one. I schooled at Tamale Senior High School and I know how things are done here.”
Prince Kwame Tamakloe
Moreover, the Education Policy Institute Africa (EDUPA) also expressed the need for government to offer psychological help to students at the Ghana Senior High School, Tamale (Ghanasco), who were housed in toilet rooms as dormitories.
According to EDUPA, coercing students to use toilet rooms as dormitories will have a psychological effect on them. As such, it is crucial for these students to be properly evaluated and assessed.
GNAT also joined the conversation on what happened to the Headmaster before GES probed into the issue. Thomas Musah Tanko, GNAt General Secretary, averred the GES should have rather indulged itself with paying Capitation Grant, which has been in arrears for over two years, to teachers and subventions to schools, than to take hasty decisions.
The immediate past Minority Leader, Haruna Iddrisu, after visiting the school and getting detailed information, averred that the initial reports that a toilet facility had been converted into a dormitory, are erroneous. In his opinion, he claimed that if proof was provided to the appropriate established order, it would have been found out that the headmaster and the housemaster, did no wrong to be interdicted.
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