The School Improvement Support Officer (SISO) overseeing the school in which Teacher Kwadzo teaches has responded to a letter directing his demotion and reassignment to classroom teacher effective immediately.
The Ghana Education Service has upon the dismissal of a popular teacher, Michael Owusu Afriyie served his SISO and Headteacher letters respectively to be reassigned to other schools to become classroom teachers for aiding in the ‘unprofessionalism’ of the embattled teacher.
According to him, the district disciplinary committee has recommended that he be punished for aiding and covering the wrongs of Michael Owusu Afriyie.
Read His Response Down Here:
RESPONSE FROM AKROFUOM SISO on Teacher Kwadwo’s Case
Good evening colleagues, Last Friday 17th December 2021, I officially received a letter from GES headquarters in relation to the above case. According to the letter I should be re-assigned to a classroom teacher in another district.
I decided not to challenge this because I thought headquarters got everything right. But after further checks, it has been realized that my District Education Disciplinary Committee made that recommendation which was endorsed by my District Director of Education with the reason that Teacher Kwadwo is a popular figure therefore they have to involve others in the case else people may think he has been witch-hunted.
I am therefore very surprised that the District Education Disciplinary Committee recommended that the SISO and the headteacher should be demoted but the Teacher himself should be re-assigned, no wonder the Director-General didn’t see any sense in this. My basis for challenging these recommendations are the following:
1. My Directorate and District Education Disciplinary Committee never found me culpable of any offense, nor did Director-General cite any of my actions that were against the Code of Conduct of GES that warranted my punishment.
2. I was posted to this directorate in September 2020, I was not assigned any schedule until January 2021. That I was given my appointment letter as a SISO of Akrofuom Circuit but the handing over as SISO was not done until June 2021, all because someone was not willing to handover and despise my numerous complaints to the directorate that it was affecting my work, no officer, not even the Director saw anything wrong with this till when I was invited to appear before the District Education Disciplinary Committee.
3. After receiving my appointment letter as SISO in January, I never visited any school in that month because no officer was willing to introduce me to my teachers. In fact, it has been recorded in all the logbooks of my schools that I introduced myself to the teachers in all the schools as the newly appointed SISO.
4. In the report that I wrote to Director and the District Education Disciplinary Committee on this issue, I clearly indicated that I got to know his absenteeism on 18th February and that was the first day I visited that school. This teacher resumed school on 10 March 2021 and a query was issued to him on 11th March 2021 for absenting himself without proper permission. It is stated in Director General’s own letter that the teacher refused to respond to some queries from the SISO, and this means that I did what was expected from me as a SISO.
5. Finally, I want to make it clear that I was not allowed to validate the teachers in my circuit until June 2021 therefore I can’t be held responsible for whoever validated the teacher after I had already reported him to the office for continuously absenting himself from school without permission.
In conclusion, I will result in any legal action to clear my reputation in this case.
Thank You
Edward Yamoah
SISO Akrofuom Circuit.
