GES asks sacked Teacher Kwadwo to petition his 2020/21 dismissal

The management of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has invited Mr. Owusu Afriyie, widely known as Teacher Kwadwo, who was sacked in 2021 for misconduct, to submit a formal petition in writing for due consideration into service.

In a social media post sighted by Pretertiary.com, GES, under the auspices of the Ministry of Education, stated that Teacher Kwadwo can submit an appeal if he believes his dismissal from two years ago is contestable.

“If Mr. Owusu Afriyie believes that his dismissal, which happened in 2021, is contestable, he is encouraged to submit a formal petition in writing for due consideration,” the Education Service stated.

The Ghana Education Service’s call for Teacher Kwadwo’s petition against his dismissal follows reports circulating in sections of the media suggesting that Mr. Michael Owusu Afriyie, popularly known as Teacher Kwadwo, has been reinstated into the Service.

But the GES debunked the claim, saying, “The Ghana Education Service wishes to state that the report is false. Mr. Owusu Afriyie has not been reinstated. The public is hereby advised to disregard the false reports.”

The former Primary 4 teacher of Akrofuom D/A Primary School shared insights into the appointment letter issued to him by the Ghana Education Service in a social media post, saying;

“On Friday, 17th December 2021, I received a letter from the Regional Education Office informing me that the Management has taken a decision to terminate my appointment from the Ghana Education Service.

According to the letter, the reasons for my dismissal relate to

1. My absence without permission for 55 days from school.

2. My failure to prepare and submit lesson notes for vetting by the headmaster

3. My failure to respond to queries served on me by the Headmaster and the School Support Officer as evidence of my gross insubordination.

On Sunday, 19th December 2021, the said letter was, contrary to my protected privacy interests, and the Code of Conduct of the GES released into the public domain by persons working for the GES through their surrogates.

I am still considering my legal options against the GES and shall speak to that at a letter time. However, I issue this statement to address the allegations contained in the letter in the interest of the urgent national debate that must happen if we are all truly committed to fixing our broken educational system

Absence without Permission

1. Contrary to the claims by the GES that I was absent from School for 55 days without permission, I state categorically that this information is false and misleading.

2. In fact, during the proceedings, the Committee established that on the relevant occasions, I had at all times received permission from the head of my institution.

3. The Committee heard from colleague teachers and established that in fact, the head of my institution put in place a flexible working arrangement that enabled me to teach, while taking Fridays off, to enable me to seek sponsorship for the School and the District. All those days was covered by a substitute teacher.

4. The Committee also established that the headmaster actually informed the entire teaching Staff that, because I had taken on the task of seeking support and sponsorship for the School, and that this was yielding results, he had decided to make it flexible for me to be able to combine my official teaching duties with my social responsibilities for the school and the district. I was encouraged to do these activities and made to understand that acting as a social ambassador for my school was expected from teachers and a good example to follow.

5. The Committee took issue with the fact that the permission I had obtained was oral and not written.

However, the GES Code of Conduct, which was drawn to their attention, clearly specifies that permission need not be only written, it can also be verbal. In fact, the GES Code of Conduct only insists on written permission when a Staff is seeking to travel outside of the Country. (See Rule 3.15)

6. I challenge all teachers in this country to state that they have never received an oral permission from their headteachers to be absent from school at any time.

7. I find that this attempt to reinterpret the Code of Conduct in order to ground the motivated decision to dismiss me smacks of discrimination and confirms my suspicion that I have been victimised for my criticisms of GES through my #FixGES advocacy.

8. I note that the Management claims that in proposing that I be dismissed from the Service, they have taken into consideration the fact that I have taken several steps which have brought in significant sponsorship support for the School and the entire district. I find it however bizarre that they will acknowledge the fruits that the special dispensation by the headteacher allowed me to secure for the district, while recommending that I be dismissed. So how was my industry to go above and beyond my duties as a teacher taken into account in order to dismiss me?

Failure to Submit Lesson Notes

1. Management claims that I refused to prepare and submit lesson notes to the headmaster for vetting.

2. This information is also untrue and skewed to justify a baseless decision.

3. In fact, the Committee found that I had at all times typed and printed my lesson notes which I presented to the Headmaster. Except that my headmaster continued to insist that the lesson notes must be handwritten and refused to accept printed lesson notes until the past term.

4. It is thus not true that the lesson notes were not prepared and submitted.

5. In fact, the major disagreement was whether the GES Code of Conduct requires that lesson notes be handwritten and cannot be typed and printed.

6. I note that several schools in the District and across Ghana accept teachers to type and print their lesson notes; and that there is no uniform practice across the country. It seems both bizarre and disingenuous for Management to fail to demonstrate which part of the GES Code of Conduct insists that lesson notes must be handwritten lesson. Also, I challenge teachers to speak up publicly about whether their schools all insist on handwriting lesson notes.

7. In any event, what purpose does it serve to bar teachers from typing and printing their lesson notes, while at the same time procuring and surcharging teachers with laptops?

8. What is the purpose of the laptops? That they should not be incorporated in teaching?

Failure to respond to queries served on me by the Headmaster and the School Support Officer

1. I deny the claim that I was insubordinate and reiterate that I did not disobey, disregard or willfully default in carrying out any lawful instruction, reasonable order given by any person, Committee or Board, having authority to do so.

2. It is not true that I was grossly insubordinate and had failed to respond to queries served on me.

3. In fact, this issue was not part of the charges I was invited to respond to. I am then surprised to see this issue raised as part of the reasons for dismissing me. The Committee did not provide me with any evidence to support this claim.

4. As I understand, it offends my rights to a fair hearing to be dismissed on charges that I have not been invited with sufficient clarity to respond to.”