Turmoil erupted at Gowrie Senior High/Technical School today when the headmistress of the school, Elizabeth Zinye Paaga, appeared on campus again after teachers instructed her to leave her office with immediate effect on Tuesday.
She did not appear alone. Dressed in all black with a black bag, she was accompanied by police officers from the Bongo District and the acting Bongo district director of education, John Ankoh.
But her return was met this morning with stiff resistance from a large number of students, many of whom jubilated yesterday at her forced exit.
Soon after she stepped out of a white Ghana Education Service (GES) pickup driven by the acting district director of education, the students, who had massed up in front of the administration block, hurled stones at her with protest chants.
The hail of stones, landing from all directions, compelled her to burn some fat as she ran some metres for cover together with the police officers.
A room where the teachers claimed some food items meant for the boarding school were being hoarded while the students starved was also opened today. Several bags, boxes, drums and cans containing food items were found in the room, lending credence to the teachers’ earlier claims.
She denied any knowledge about how the food items got into that room as a shocked acting district director of education stood there with his mouth slightly opened.
As the headmistress and her escorts readied themselves to leave the troubled campus, the police suggested she join them in their car for security reasons. She unhesitatingly hopped into the police vehicle with her bag held very tight to her body.
But when the cars came out of the campus, they met roadblocks on the unpaved main road that leads Gowrie to Yorogo from the school’s gateless main entrance. Some students emerged from around those roadblocks, armed with rocks. The acting district director of education looked frightened behind his steering wheel.
“Yehowah!” the director reportedly exclaimed, paused driving and leaned backwards in his seat when he saw the students.
The police managed to disperse the students and the three-car convoy continued its adventurous journey back towards the Bongo town.
As the cars moved, the headmistress poked her head out of the window and told the dispersing students: “I’m coming back to take my school and I will deal with you!”
Reasons teachers, students want the headmistress out of the school
The massive rejection the headmistress is facing is rooted in several controversial issues the teachers have stomached for long, some of them emerging about half a decade ago.
In January, this year, heads of departments demanded the school’s analysis of the 2024 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) results from her.
According to the head of the school’s technical department, Roland Awine Adabre, she has declined to release the analysis to this day.
On Monday, 21 July 2025, she reportedly stoked tension at a staff general meeting and walked out on the meeting after making some offensive remarks against some teachers over the demand for the analysis.
The first and second-year students are due to sit their School-Based Assessment (SBA) this week, but the test, which was scheduled to start on Tuesday (yesterday), was suspended because the A4 sheets that were needed to print the questions were locked away in her office.
She arrived late on Tuesday, minutes after the first SBA paper should have started. When some senior members of the teaching staff approached her for the A4 sheets, she reportedly asked them to go back and count the number of sheets needed for the first paper.
The teachers left and reappeared in her office shortly afterwards, telling her she could not manage the school well and ordering her to leave the office immediately.
She resisted. But as the teachers insisted and their number grew, she picked up her bag and walked out of the office into a waiting crowd of students celebrating her removal at the top of their voices.
The school’s staff secretary and leader of the staff protests, Maclean Ayamga, linked the headmistress to the school’s food items found in a room not designated as a food store.
Other reasons for the rejection
Three weeks ago, a pregnant student was suspected to have either undertaken an abortion or had a miscarriage on campus.
The headmistress, according to the teachers, unilaterally invited the girl’s parents to the school to notify them about the incident and handed the student indefinite suspension from the school.
The teachers say her action was wrong. They maintain that individuals do not take such decisions alone at the school level and that she has no authority to indefinitely suspend any student.
Another point they are making is that she should have ascertained whether the pregnancy was terminated by an abortion or a miscarriage for a better judgment of the development before taking any further steps.
Further to the above, a white paper was released after a nine-member committee that was tasked to investigate the causes of a riot that broke out at the school in May, 2021, concluded its work with a report.
The white paper, according to Ayamga, directed each student to pay a fine towards the repairs of the teachers’ belongings vandalised during the riot. He said some of the affected teachers pre-financed the repairs but were not reimbursed as expected after the students paid the fines.
The committee’s report also indicted the headmistress, saying a strained bond between her and some of the school’s staff was one of the underlying causes of the riot.
“The headmistress has a spontaneous and reactionary administrative approach, which revolves around rumours and suspicion of some key management members and staff.
“Her public use of unsavoury and derogatory comments on teachers who appear to have different shades of opinions from hers has resulted in a strained relationship between her and some of her staff,” the report revealed on page 17.
Source: Edward Adeti/Media Without Borders/mwbonline.org/Ghana
Very strong-headed! She says she will come and deal with them: that is the problem!