President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonou has said his understanding of the court ruling ordering Achimota Senior High School to admit the two Rastafarian students it denied admission over their failure to cut down their dreadlocks is that students are now free to dress anyhow they wish and wear any form of hairstyle to school.
Speaking in an interview on Accra-based Joy FM, Angel Carbonou, who appeared disappointed at the court’s decision, stated that the ruling cannot only be limited to permitting students to wearing dreadlocks on religious grounds to school but should also permit every students to dress in anyway they deem fit to school.
He argued that any attempt to apply the ruling only to Rastafarian students will be an act of discrimination and myopic way of interpreting the court’s verdict.
“Let’s not limit this to Rasta. Any form of hairdo should be allowed in the school and will admonished my members that you don’t go and say they said Rasta, that will be a very myopic way of looking at it. Any form of hairdo; Mohican hairdo is a hairdo, Rasta is hairdo, bushy afro hair is a hairdo, ‘sakora’ is a hairdo. We don’t have to waste our time on some of these things. People can wear suit, smock, ‘Batakari’, anything, those who want to walk barefooted should be able to walk barefooted to school. Your (teachers) duty is to teach Geography, Maths, English and all the other subjects. That is the extension and that is my understanding of the ruling,” he said.
The NAGRAT president continued to say “Someone has Rasta, another person has Mohican, another person will have afro, another person will have ‘sakora’, are they not all hairdos? Somebody will have perming, somebody will have jerrycurls, somebody will have braids, are they not all hairdos? So why should we discriminate? Somebody wants to wear togas, another person wants to wear trousers, another person wants to wear shorts, are they not all pants?”
Mr. Carbonou comments follow the ruling of the Human Rights Division of an Accra High Court ordering Achimota Senior High School to admit the two Rastafarian students, Tyron Iras Marhguy and Oheneba Kwaku Nkrabea who were denied admission over their Rastafarian hairstyle.
NAGRAT had backed the decision of the school to deny the two brilliant students admission with the claim that the school’s rules and regulations do not permit the wearing of dreadlocks into the classroom. It stood solidly behind the school to defy the GES’s directive for the students to be admitted with its president mounting a spirited defense in the media in support of what, some argued, was an infringement on the rights of the two students.
Angel Carbonou, during the heat of the debate over the issue in the media, went to the extent of suggesting to the Rastafarian community to build their own schools if they are not willing to obey the school’s rules, a comment he was heavily criticized over as many viewed such utterances as callous and reckless.
But after over a month of legal battle following the decision of the two students to drag the Board of Governors of the school, the Ghana Education Service, the Ministry of Education and the Attorney General before a court of competent jurisdiction, the law court delivered its verdict on May 31, 2021 setting aside the supposed school’s rule preventing the students from wearing dreadlocks to school.
The court contended that the application of the rule in question will restrain the students from enjoying their rights to education and freedom of religion which are guaranteed in the 1992 Constitution, adding that the defendants did not make any compelling argument as to why the students should not be admitted on the basis of their hairstyles.
It, therefore, ordered the school to admit the two students.
But reacting to the ruling in the interview, Mr. Carbonou concluded that the court’s decision is a slap on the face of School’s rules and regulations and a suggestion that rules and regulations are not necessary in schools and thus, he urged his members and colleague teachers to concern themselves with only teaching the various subjects of learning and not worry about enforcing any rule or regulation.
“We raised concerns that let’s obey school’s rules; that if you take your child to school, obey school rules. If the court feels that the school’s rules are not necessary, so be it. I don’t think teachers will lose a single hair on this” he stated.
