The General Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Thomas Musah, has cautioned against chastising the headmistress and teachers of Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Senior High School (KNUST SHS) over the recent death of one of the students.
The headmistress and teachers of the school came under heavy attack after a video circulating captured the said student struggling in the arms of his colleagues while the teachers were engaged in a conversation.
However, the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah has said that the blame should go to the systematic failure instead of the headmistress and teachers. Explaining further, he noted that before the reopening of schools, the Government assured that there will be the presence of health professionals in the schools and schools will be mapped to a hospital.
In an interview with Kwame Afrifa Mensah on the ‘Epa Hoa Daben’ show, he said: “The agreement was that each school will be mapped to a hospital and the guideline was that if you were sick, you must not go to school.
If you observe what happened at the KNUST SHS, it is surprising that a school can operate without a nurse. We have been informed that all the schools will be mapped out with health facilities, and even so, there was not a nurse present. The question is why?
If you promised all these before the school will reopen and you have not done so, it is a systematic failure. Why blame the teachers? It was someone’s duty to ensure that the nurse was there and they did not do it so why are you holding someone else responsible?”.
Thomas Musah noted that a similar health situation arose in the Odorgonno SHS a while back but the situation was managed because of the quick response from the health facility and nurse mapped to the school per the president’s directive.
“I visited Odorgonno and that was when there was an alleged case of COVID-19. However, it turned out that some few students were just running temperature. Thank God there was a nurse in the school to salvage the situation. She deserves commendation”, he said.
He opined that the best way forward after the death of the student was to identify which health facility and nurse were mapped to the school when the incident occurred for a fair judgment. “Let’s not condemn people when they have not been given a hearing. He who alleges that if any person is accused, they must be given a hearing. But here they are, they have been demonized”.
He, however, noted that while GNAT condemns the demonization of the headmistress and the teachers, it is never against any investigations into the matter to ascertain what really happened.
Some students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology Senior High School (KNUST SHS) on Tuesday evening held a protest against the school authorities following the death of a student.
According to the students, one of their colleagues who had an ulcer and was ill was not attended to adequately by the school authorities.
They believe the authorities feared he had contracted the novel coronavirus and as a result, did not attend to him for hours leading to his death. The students then started demonstrating to register their displeasure with the school authorities.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
