GES often favour school managers in sexual abuse investigations – Kofi Asare

The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch, Kofi Asare, has expressed doubts about the Ghana Education Service’s (GES) ability to handle sexual abuse allegations involving school management members fairly.

He said the school system often favoured management members in safeguarding cases instead of providing adequate support to victims.

His comments come amid the alleged sexual abuse scandal at Obuasi Senior High Technical School (SHTS), which has triggered investigations and renewed calls for stronger protection of students.

The school’s headmaster, Zakaria Abdulai, has been accused of sexually assaulting about 19 students.

Speaking on Accra-based Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Wednesday, October 21, Kofi Asare said students could struggle to obtain justice when allegations were made against headmasters or other school authorities.

“When management members are involved at the school level, it’s very, very difficult. The system, when such issues occur, normally leans in favour of the management member,” he said.

The education advocate argued that relying on school authorities to handle such complaints could discourage students from reporting abuse and undermine efforts to hold alleged perpetrators accountable.

He therefore called for students to report safeguarding concerns directly to external agencies rather than relying solely on school-based reporting systems.

“For us at Eduwatch, we believe that minimal or zero human involvement in the reporting system will be the best,” he said.

He proposed that students use the Ministry of Gender’s toll-free abuse reporting helpline to report cases directly to an external agency, reducing the risk of complaints being filtered or suppressed within school communities.