The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Karbonu has cautioned that teachers will not be intimidated by the whims and caprices of certain people in the country.
According to him, if some people feel they can run the various schools better than the teachers, they are welcome to come and take over.
Addressing Journalists in Accra, he said " But let me also state that if people think they can run the schools better than we do, they are welcome to come and take over the schools and run it. We will teach our subjects and walk away. but teachers will not be intimidated by the whims and caprices of people"
The call comes after the Ghana Education Service (GES) intervened and granted access to a Rastafarian student who was earlier denied access to study by the Authorities at Achimota Senior High School.
Mr. Karbonu added that since the country has several regions, he believes that no NAGRAT teacher will be intimidated by the presence of even a Hindu student wrapped in his or her outfit or a fetish priest's son who comes to the school bare-chested with 'rafia'.
"The same way, a fetish priest's son who wanted to come to the school bare-chested with 'rafia' will not intimidate me. The same way the Hindu who wants to come to the school with his Hindu wraps will not intimidate me but what I am talking about is conformity and an environment that will not be intimidated by individual people's beliefs and religious manifestations but for me as a person, it does not intimidate me. If the red-light area of Osu does not intimidate me, I don't see how I will be intimidated by what people wear. But we are saying that this is a school and we don't have only three religions in this country, we have several religions and several beliefs in this country."
He hinted that he has a feeling that some people think Africa does not have brains.
When I hear these things, I get frustrated because it is absolutely not true. In any case, do the Ghanaian or African teachers not have the brains to know what it takes to control 4000 students in a school of 130 teachers? Don't we?
The NAGRAT President also revealed that Africa had a University in Mali long before the whites set their foot on the African continent.
"When people do this conclusion that formal education was brought onto this continent by a white man, it is historically not true. If people want to say that rules and regulations were brought into this country, it is historically not true. If there are rules that conform to our beliefs, lots of colonial rules have been taken out of our laws and in our schools" he stressed.
"It is dangerous for you to limit this thing to a simple rasta hair. If you say a student can come to the school with rasta hair, why do you stop a student perming her hair? Which salon in the school will allow the child to dress her hair?" he questioned.
"If you want us to go to school and teach geography, history, and mathematics, and leave your children to do whatever they want, we will be very happy to do that. It will take a lot of works off our shoulders. That is why we are telling people to go to court. If it comes to that, it will be a very welcoming situation for me because I have nothing to lose so that the boys go to the girl's dormitory whenever they want, the boys and girls go to town whenever they want to go and barber and dress their hair. In fact, we should even take away the wearing of school uniforms. Some people wear whatever they want in the school. If that is what you want, be my guest" he fumed.
Below are videos:
Story by: Joshua Kwabena Smith