Send Your Rasta Children To Achimota School; Nobody Can Hate Them - Kwamena Tells Parents

Former Central Regional Minister, Kwamena Duncan, has objected to calls that the parents of the two Rastafarian students whose enrollment into Achimota school was disallowed should not send their children to the school even after winning their court case.

In March this year, Achimota School issued admission letters to the two students but indicated that they would only be enrolled on condition that they shave their dreadlocks in accordance with the school’s academic regulations.

Parents of the Rastafarian students, Tyron Iras Marhguy and Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea, refused to cut their children's dreadlocks but sued the Achimota school, the Minister of Education, Ghana Education Service and the Attorney General.

The applicants asked the court to “declare that the failure and or refusal of the 1st Respondent (Achimota School Board of Governors) to admit or enroll the Applicant on the basis of his Rastafarian religious inclination, beliefs and culture characterized by his keeping of Rasta, is a violation of his fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed under the 1992 constitution particularly Articles 12(1), 23, 21(1)(b)(c)”.

They also requested "an order directed at [Achimota School] to immediately admit or enroll the applicant to continue with his education unhindered" and also sought compensation for the "inconvenience, embarrassment, waste of time, and violation of his fundamental human rights and freedoms".

Following the law suit, the Human Rights Division of the Accra High Court presided by Justice Gifty Agyei Addo ordered Achimota School to admit the students, ruling that the fundamental human rights of two students cannot be limited by the rules.

Managing Editor of the Insight newspaper, Kwesi Pratt, speaking on the issue, asked the students' parents not to send them to the school.

"Maybe, in the interest of the children, they shouldn't go to the Achimota school. If I were their parent, I wouldn't allow them to go to the Achimota school. The victory has already been achieved. The rules have been set for the future. It's a major victory for the Rastafarian community. That's enough! Why do you push it to the extent that the children must by all means go to that school? The authorities of the school are at the school. They're still in authority and so on. It's not comforting for the children. All eyes will be on them; I don't think it's the best thing," he argued.

But Kwamena Duncan disagrees with Kwesi Pratt and any other proponent who suggests the students shouldn't attend the school.

Speaking on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', the former Minister held that nobody can hate the students neither can the authorities make their stay in the school uneasy, hence urging the parents to ''let their children go to the school''.

''What is it? What can they do to them?...Who can hate them?'', he queried.

"It's not the Headmistress. It is not the teachers. It was a certain misunderstanding that cropped up. I don't think the Achimota teachers will say you have gone to court and won the case, so we won't teach you. No, no, not at all; they will continue to be professional...The kids were put there by the system. They must go to school," he emphasized.

He charged the Minister of Education, Yaw Adutwum, to "quickly insist for the kids to go to school. Our system that we run, as a constitution, as a democracy; it must be one that we all abide by the law and must be seen to do what the law directs quickly [quickly]. That is what will continue to build the confidence''.