Achimota Preparatory School Locked Up By GES Officials After Court Order
Officials from the Ghana Education Service (GES) in the Okaikwei North District have locked up offices and classrooms of the Achimota Preparatory School.
This follows a court order received by the GES to take over the management of the facility.
The ruling was given on March 2020, according to a statement from the GES.
The service explained that the land and building being occupied by the Achimota Preparatory School formed part of Achimota School Land per the Achimota School Ordinance No. 7 & 1948.
The preparatory school was for some expatriates during the colonial era and was established for their children, staff of Achimota School and the University College of the Gold Coast.
Over time, the expatriates left the management of the school in the hands of locals who from time to time form a management committee to run the school as a private institution. APS has been operating that model to date.
The GES explained that “sometime in the 1960s, Achimota School granted lease to APS to allow it to operate from the premises which expired in 1970.”
In January 2020, amid the contentions, the Parent-Teacher Association of the Achimota Preparatory School said it would resist attempts by the GES to take over the school.
It has also accused the GES of acting in bad faith in the matter.
In a petition sent to the Commission on Human Rights And Administrative Justice (CHRAJ) on the 31st December 2019, the PTA of the Achimota Preparatory School said the Greater Accra Regional Director of Education, Monica Ankrah invited the management of the school for a meeting at her office, during which “she sought to use her position to bully and threaten that our school, a legally registered corporate [organisation] will be taken over by the GES on the 27th January 2020.”
Ms. Ankrah according to the petition had claimed that “Achimota Preparatory and JHS had ceased making lease payments to the Achimota Senior School since the 1970s hence the government will take over the school lands including our investment on the land,” a claim the Achimota Preparatory School described as false.
In the said petition, the Achimota Preparatory School claimed Ms. Ankrah declared that the school must wind up by the 24th of January 2020 and be ready to be taken over on the 27th of January 2020.