Counting the days...How my work got GES to reinstate dismissed ‘adult’ student
Just as I was wrapping up my 22-year escapade with The Mirror to move on to other areas I had served, an ardent reader of The Mirror and follower of my retirement epistles called to remind me of one important story I did which merited mention in my narrative.
When I quizzed her further, she wondered how I could have forgotten about the story that impacted the life of a 30-year-old student, Samuel Adade, of my alma mater, Manya Krobo Senior High School (MAKROSEC) in Odumase-Krobo in the Lower Manya Krobo municipality in the Eastern Region.
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I explained to her that since I would not be able to capture all my experiences, accomplishments and challenges in the series, I would write my memoirs after I had retired from my current employment.
The young lady would not budge and insisted I tell that story for the benefit of all those who missed it in The Mirror or were not born when the story broke.
Eventually, I yielded to the reader’s request.
So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the story about Samuel Adade, a retrenched worker of the defunct Crop Services Division of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture.
Adade, a Middle School Leaving Certificate holder, was among a large number of workers who were retrenched in the early part of 1990, just at the inception of the new educational reform — the Junior Secondary School (JSS)/Senior Secondary School (SSS) concept.
As a result of the ambition he had nurtured, he decided to go back to school and be part of the new system.
He, therefore, enrolled in a JSS, on completion of which he gained admission to MAKROSEC, aged 30 years.
Adult life
While working with the Crop Services Division, he had a fiancee who stood by him during his JSS days and on entry into SSS.
In 1993, while in SSS One, Adade decided to formalise his relationship with the fiancee and, accordingly, invited the headmaster and the staff of the school, as well as his mates, to his wedding.
The information at the time was that a few members of staff and students graced the occasion, to the chagrin of the Headmaster, Mr Alex Tetteh, of blessed memory.
Unfortunately, a year later in 1994, while he was in SSS Two, Adade lost his wife and sent an invitation to the headmaster, staff and students of MAKROSEC to come and mourn with him.
That second invitation infuriated the headmaster, who dismissed Adade.
Engagement with headmaster
That incident was brought to the attention of the national executive of the Manya Krobo Senior High School Old Students Association (MAKOSA), of which yours truly is the General Secretary, to intercede on behalf of Adade.
The association got in touch with the headmaster and impressed on him to rescind his decision, especially taking Adade’s circumstances as a well-behaved adult student, into consideration.
Sadly, the headmaster turned down our pleas and insisted that Adade’s conduct would have a bad influence on the rest of the students if disciplinary action was not taken against him.
No matter how much we pleaded with Mr Tetteh, he remained resolute in his position. After that fruitless engagement with the headmaster, the executive council gave me the go ahead to publish the story in The Mirror.
When the story appeared in the The Mirror one Saturday, on Monday the Eastern Regional directorate of the Ghana Education Service in Koforidua summoned the headmaster, and after a series of interrogations, he was ordered to reinstate Adade.
He complied and Adade was recalled at the beginning of the new term, and went on to complete his SSS education.
Currently, Adade is the Head Teacher of the Brukum-Kponya Primary School near Sekesua in the Upper Manya Krobo District.
Last Monday, I managed to get his contact and spoke with him. He was profusely grateful for my story, which changed the course of his life.
He told me that when he completed MAKROSEC in 1995, he went to a Bible School in Accra, before he later gained admission to the Ada College of Education in 2003 to train as a teacher.
He also told me that by God’s grace, he had put up his own house at Kpong in the Lower Manya Krobo municipality and was preparing for his retirement in June next year.
I was touched by these disclosures and felt highly honoured for touching a life like Samuel Adade’s.
The writer is the Night Editor of the Daily Graphic. E-mail: [email protected]