HEADMASTER ACCUSED…Of extortion by parents

The Headmaster of Assin Manso Senior High School in the Assin South District of the Central Region, Mr Garth Oppong-Kwakye, is under intense pressure from parents to vacate his post.

The move, TODAY gathered, follows allegations of extortion leveled against him by the guardians.

Barima Kwame Nkyi XII, the Paramount Chief of the area, after a careful assessment of the conduct of the headmaster has also endorsed the call by the parents to ensure that Mr Oppong-Kwakye is relieved of his post.

Aside from the allegation of extortion, Mr Oppong-Kwakye has also been accused of inflating prices of school items such as text books, calculators, school uniforms, etc.

According to some aggrieved parents who spoke to TODAY, the current state of affairs in the school is disturbing, and is adversely affecting the academic performance of the children.

The concerned parents have therefore urged the authorities to move in to save the school from total collapse, as indiscipline has become the order of the day in the school.

Although the parents did not divulge this, further checks into the registers of the various classes by TODAY revealed poor attendance, as some of the parents preferred their children to stay at home.

The action of the parents, the paper learned, is to ‘show Mr Oppong Kwakye where power lies’ as he would no longer get the chance to ask them to pay exorbitant fees for school items when their children are at home.

Those who even take the trouble to pay, most often, have to wait for two to three days before they are given the items, the parents added.

“It took this man (referring to Mr Oppong) more than one year to provide common text books to my children when I have paid huge amount of money. And, please ask yourself if it took him so much to provide text books how many years do you think he will spend on uniforms, only

God knows. So at a point some of us decided to go to the market and buy the materials to be sown by seamstresses, the parent expressed.

However, some of the students the paper spoke to also corroborated the allegations and appealed to the Ghana Education Service (GES) to come to their rescue as they risk failing their final exams if drastic measures are not taken to reverse the trend.

Meanwhile, a petition sighted by this reporter and signed by Barima Nkyi, XII, on behalf of the Assin Apimanim Traditional Area to the Director-General of GES called on authorities to, as a matter of urgency, institute full scale investigations into the tenure of Mr Oppong-Kwakye to bring and maintain peace in the school.

However, speaking in an interview with TODAY in his office last Thursday, Mr Oppong-Kwakye swiftly brushed aside the allegations, noting that he was only being accused by people who have problems with his leadership style, and not that he was incompetent enough to man the affairs of the school.

“I am a native of this land and I do not wish evil for the people in the area. I came to this school to leave a mark of excellence and that is evident through my achievements, so I will not allow myself to be distracted by these false allegations,” he told this reporter.

STORY: FROM MAGDALENE SEY, CAPE COAST