The President of the National Graduate Association of Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, has lambasted the management of the St. Monica’s Senior High School in Mampong, following the death of a female student.

The housemistress of the school is said to have turned away the deceased after she approached her for an exeat to visit home for medical help.

The management of the school has however been interdicted pending probe since the incident happened in May 2023.

Angel Carbonu, in an audio recording, slammed the management of the school for refusing to grant exeat to the sick student, which supposedly led to her untimely death in the school.

A livid President of NAGRAT questioned the gains the housemistress sought to achieve by refusing to grant the said student the exeat.

He said he had received calls from his colleague teachers to intervene in the matter and further disclosed that the teachers of the school were being verbally abused on local radio stations.

“My dear colleague teachers, there is an unfortunate development at Mampong St. Monica’s SHS, which has led to the interdiction of the management of the school. I have had a lot of complaints from our members to intervene in the case. But I wonder how and why this situation should arise in the first place,” he said.

He further narrated, “A girl falls sick, and comes for exeat to go to the hospital, the girl is shown to the house staff. And the girl was denied exeat, leading to the death of this girl. 

Now people are threatening brimstone against the Ghana Education Service, teachers are being insulted left right and centre on local radio stations and so on and so forth. My colleagues, sometimes I don’t know what is wrong with us the teachers, drawing onto ourselves, problems and challenges that no one compensates us for. 

If a student is sick, and there is evidence that the student is sick, and the student comes to you for an exeat, what on earth do you benefit from refusing an exeat for the student to go to the hospital? What do you stand to gain as a teacher for refusing to give exeat to a student to go to the hospital?”

He further took a dig at teachers who turn away sick students who request for exeat, describing the incident as a sad one.

“We have reports where parents have come to the schools to take their own children home for this and that reason and school authorities will say I will not allow it. At the end of the day, when there is a problem, you want all of us to share the problem. How much are you being compensated for, for a job that is unnecessarily done by you? That people don’t even recognize? The story in Mampong is a very sad one. An innocent girl lost her life just because a house mistress refused to do her duty.

“How can you say it’s not time for exeat and therefore whether you are sick or not, dying or not, I’m not going to give you exeat? Colleague teachers, sometimes we attract ourselves into invectives and negative expressions people make against us. If you feel that the housemistress job is too much for you, you can resign. There’s no need for this girl to die at St. Monica’s SHS at all,” he pointed out.

Sompaonline.com/Nana Yaw Boamah