A senior high school teacher in Bongo, a district in the Upper East region, has criticised a regional director of education in an angry way over an abuse he reportedly suffered at his hands.
Both the teacher, Francis Nyaaba Ayamga, and the regional director, Bright Lawoe, are staff of the Ghana Education Service (GES).
“I regret ever encountering you in life. I have, with all the energy in me, expunged those dark pages from my life,” Ayamga screamed in an open letter he wrote this month.
“Shame on you,” he added.
Ayamga had taught English Language and Literature in English at Gowrie Senior High/Technical School since 2011 until he suddenly received a transfer letter from the regional director on Monday, 22 July 2024.
“I wish to inform you that you have been re-posted from Gowrie Senior High/Technical School to Azeem-Namoa Senior High/Technical School to teach English Language and any other subject of your competence with effect from 2nd July, 2024,” said the director in the letter dated 26th June, 2024.
The action sparked instant protests from the teacher and his colleagues, not because Ayamga did not want to leave the school, but because the transfer was associated with an old campus riot he knew nothing about and linked to his constant criticism of the school’s headmistress, Elizabeth Zinye Paaga, for a lack of discipline among students and administrative justice in the school.
In addition to the reasons for the protests, Ayamga also noticed a false statement the regional director made in the third paragraph of that letter.
The paragraph read: “You will bear the full cost of your transport expenses to your new station as well as your transfer grant since the movement is at your own request.”
On Tuesday, 23 July 2024, Ayamga met with the regional director at his office and told him he was surprised the letter was saying the transfer was at his “own request”.
Then, the regional director called his secretary to the office. He told the secretary to retype the same transfer letter and asked him to exclude the third paragraph from the content of the new letter. When the secretary brought the new letter, the regional director signed it, stapled both the new letter and the old one together and handed them to Ayamga.
Public reactions and regional director’s defence
The regional director told Media Without Borders days later that his secretary was to blame for the false statement made in the letter.
While Ayamga suspected that the regional director was influenced by the headmistress to get him out of the school, the regional director also came under heavy public condemnation for failing to read a letter that bore a false statement before appending his signature to it and issuing it.
He was also widely condemned for transferring the school’s only experienced English Language and Literature in English teacher in the last preparation month before the start of the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
Despite the public noise, the regional director stood by the decision, saying he was just like a football coach, free to substitute players as he pleased.
He further stated that the transfer had nothing to do with the 2021 riot.
The protesting teachers maintained it was linked to the riot because, prior to the transfer, the headmistress had delightedly announced that a committee that was commissioned to investigate the cause of the riot had issued a white paper, recommending that an Ayamga-led group of five members of the school’s staff be released from the school.
Committee did not recommend teacher transfer
The chairman of that committee, Francis Agyeere, told the author of this report he had no knowledge of any “white paper” and affirmed that the committee did not recommend a transfer of any of the school’s staff in its report.
The report did not find Ayamga culpable in relation to that riot. It rather said Ayamga was a victim, his residence among a number of things vandalised by the boarding students who went on rampage hours after a class was punished by the school’s authorities. The Bongo District Education Directorate has declined to provide a copy of the report to the teachers of the school from 2021 to this day with an excuse that the contents are confidential.
“As a victim of a riot who was cleared of any wrongdoing by the committee of enquiry, is this my reward for working hard for GES?” Ayamga asked in his recent open letter.
Ayamga’s current duty post poses a lot of inconvenience to him, particularly during the rainy season. Getting to the new school requires crossing a river that has no bridge. It was even reported that the new school was not in need of any English Language or English Literature teacher when he arrived there on that controversial transfer.
“You asked and I told you where I stayed. Why did you repost me to the far end of the district? What at all is the reason for the reposting?” he further asked in that open letter.
Regional director transferred
Lawoe is no more the Upper East regional director of education. He handed over to Alice Abeere-Inga on Monday, 28 April 2025, and proceeded to Savannah as its regional director.
While Lawoe was in charge of the Upper East region between Tuesday, 7 February 2023, and Monday, 28 April 2025, at least three unforgettable developments were recorded.
On Monday, 22 April 2024, the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) uncovered several expired food items at Zuarungu Senior High School.
On Saturday, August 31, 2024, bags containing food items meant for the students of Gowrie Senior High School were retrieved from a motorised tricycle rider. The rider was reportedly engaged by the school’s matron to illegally move the items out of the school campus.
On Saturday, 1 February 2025, several first-year students of Zuarungu Senior High School were bullied and ordered to simulate sex acts on the school’s premises by final-year students. The sex acts were filmed and posted on social media.
“Sir, within the confines of law, you may have gotten your way but you cannot deny me my say,” Ayamga stated in the open letter.
“Do to others what you would have them do to you. The evil that men do lives after them,” he concluded.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
