Brouhaha Over Bushy Hair : GES Orders St. John's grammar to register students at school’s Cost

The Ghana Eduction Service (GES) has directed authorities at the St John’s Grammar Senior High School in Accra to prepare three of its students to write the Christian Religious Studies paper in the upcoming November/December edition of the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).

According to the GES, the school should prepare the students for the examination at its own cost.

The three students — Harriet Boakye, Betty Boakye and Abigail Rockson — were last Monday prevented from writing the paper in the ongoing WASSCE because they had kept bushy hair, contrary to the school’s rules and regulations.

The acting Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Mr Jacob Kor, who gave the directive during a visit to the school yesterday, described the timing of the disciplinary action as inappropriate.

Exercise caution
He said inasmuch as the students had flouted some of the school’s rules and regulations, it was only proper for the disciplinary action to be taken against them after they had written the paper.

“When students in the final year are having disciplinary problems and it is time for examination, they should be allowed to write the examination and thereafter you deal with them. You don’t deal with them during the process of the examination because it gives the students more fear and impatience to write the examination,” he said.

Additionally, he said, once the students had registered with the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), there was a contract between the council and the students and as such school administrators should handle such disciplinary issues within the examination period with a bit of caution.

Giving an account of the events that led to the prevention of the students from writing the paper, the Headmaster of St John’s, Mr Emmanuel Ofoe Fiemawhle, said six students were identified to have bushy hair and asked to go and trim their hair before they would be allowed to write the paper.

Unfortunately, he said, three of them refused to adhere to the directive and left to report the school authorities to an Accra-based radio station, Peace FM.

He said the rest of their mates who had stayed and pleaded with the authorities were permitted entry into the examination hall to write the paper.

Mr Fiemawhle, however, conceded that the situation could have been handled better, if the students had stayed with their mates, instead of rushing to REPORT the matter to the radio station.

Student’s indiscipline
Showing some academic records to the Daily Graphic, Mr Fiemwakle said some of the six students had, over the years, been cited for gross misconduct and indiscipline in the school.

He cited two of the students, in a letter dated November 8, 2013, who had been put on a week’s internal suspension.

He said one of them who was a boarder had been withdrawn from the boarding house for deviant behaviour.

According to the letter, which was copied to some heads of departments of the school, as well as the parents, the student had sneaked out of the school around 10 p.m. on Saturday, October 26, 2013 to a night club at Lapaz and returned at 1:30 a.m.

It said she had been seen drunk and smoking, a behaviour which was appalling.

“This behaviour of yours shows gross indiscipline and you have been withdrawn from the boarding house. You are not to be seen within and around the boarding house with immediate effect,” the letter stated.

Credit : Graphic