The Management of Achimota Preparatory School in Accra, has refuted claims that it has agreed for the school to be under the control of the Ghana Education Service.

The Ministry of Education announced that the Achimota Preparatory School was going to part of Achimota Basic School under the general management of the Ghana Education Service following deliberations between both parties.

“At the invitation of the Minister for Education, the two parties met and after deliberations resolved as follows; Achimota Preparatory School is going to be part of Achimota Basic School under the general management of the GES”.

But a press statement signed by the Vice Chairman of the school’s Management Board, Bernard Anaba, insisted that they never agreed to be under the control of GES management.

The statement also noted that some of the phrases in the Education Ministry’s press release were not in the document they agreed to.

“We must state unequivocally here that, it was never agreed that Achimota Preparatory School be part of Achimota Basic School, let alone to be under the control and management of GES.”

The statement also explained that “the press release the management of the Achimota Preparatory School agreed to on the 12th of May 2021 at the meeting at the Ministry of Education, did not include the sentence: ‘At the invitation of the Minister for Education, the two parties met and after deliberations resolved as follows,’ as well as the phrase, ‘after a recent court ruling in Accra’. We believe that these unilateral additions to the statement which we had disagreed early on in the meeting, were later added to deliberately create a misleading impression in the minds of the public, and therefore should be disregarded and treated with the contempt it so deserves.”

“We request that urgent steps and decisions are taken and made respectively to ensure that the academic calendar, teaching and learning and more especially our final year students who are preparing for their BECE are not negatively affected,” the statement noted.

Background
Officials of the GES in the Okaikwei North District on April 30, 2021, locked up offices and classrooms of the Achimota Preparatory School, following a court order received by the Service to take over the management of the school.

The Ghana Education Service had explained that the land and building being occupied by the Achimota Preparatory School formed part of the Achimota School land per the Achimota School Ordinance No. 7 & 1948.

The preparatory school was established by some expatriates during the colonial era and 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, formed management committees 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 a 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 despite the court ruling that allowed the takeover.