No Headmaster Will Be Penalized For Talking To The Media - Deputy Education Minister Assures

Deputy Minister for Education in-charge of Secondary Education, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum has said that no headmaster will be punished for talking to the media with respect to the Free Senior High School [SHS] policy.

“Let me be specific here, no headmaster will be penalized for talking to the media, it will not happen under the watch of our ministry and we will not condone any behavior like that as there is no media guard on this by the GES,” he responded to a question as to why headmasters of the various public SHS’s have refused to speak to the media especially on challenges facing their schools after the Free policy was implemented.

According to him it is not the best for the heads of SHS’s to report to the media on problems facing them when they have a unit they must report to in case of any problem.

The headmaster of La PRESEC, Samuel Salamat who was recently in the news for allegedly levying fresh students about GH¢80 to purchase chairs to be used by the students due to the deplorable state of the existing ones is said to have been transferred to the Curriculum Department of the Ghana Education Service (GES).

Meanwhile, his transfer to the Curriculum Department of GES as reported by Citi FM followed a stern warning issued to him by the Ministry of Education not to disclose challenges the school was facing to the media.

Giving the reason for his transfer when confronted in an interview with Citi FM morning show, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum said “Mr. Salamat was transferred based on what he did and not because he talked to the media. If you are charging fees that you want parents to pay, but of course have not been approved by government or GES to be so, what happens? . . . We have given you resources and we have development levies, therefore if you need anything you can use part of the development levy to do that, why will you go to parents and ask them to pay something that the government has already paid for.”