TEMA PARENTS ASSOCIATION SCHOOL PTA, MANAGEMENT TEAM DISAGREE, DAILY GRAPHIC, MON FEB 7, 2011 (PAGE 11)

Story: Della Russel Ocloo, Tema

CONCERNS raised by the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) of the Tema Parents Association School on the need for the institution's accounts to be audited have seen the school’s PTA and its four-member management team on a collision course.
The management team headed by the acting Headmaster, Mr Abraham Ekow Afer, in a strongly worded eight-point resolution signed by him (Mr Afer) and two others, namely Mrs Doris Azu, and Mr Johny Kwasie, both executive members of the school’s welfare association, to the PTA executive, cautioned that the school no longer needed its existence to operate.
According to the letter, the PTA could not prompt management on the said issues owing to the school’s registered status as a company limited by guarantee under the Company’s Code of 1963 of which PTA was not incorporated into its structure.
The letter accused the PTA executive, which has Justice Senyo Dzamefe an Appeal Court Judge, as its chairman, of usurping powers and interfering in the day-to-day running of the school.
At an emergency meeting of the school’s PTA held at the weekend to discuss the administration of the school, the PTA chairman indicated that currently, there was no existence of a board of directors and a substantive headmaster at the school thus contributing to the loss of central authority.
That, he said, resulted from the fallout of a legal tussle between the school’s management and its former headmistress, Mrs Nsaki Kaseem, over the last two years.
The situation, he recalled, saw the freezing of the school’s accounts of which Mrs Kaseem was a signatory resulting from a stay of execution motion filed by the outgone board of directors. Currently, Mr Dzamefe noted, the management received GH¢800,000 in hard cash per term as fees.
He told the meeting that the monies had over the last three terms been lodged in the school’s Teachers’ Welfare Account, which is interest yielding and which has two teachers as signatories.
He described the situation as distressing and wondered what would happen in the event of the said signatories to the welfare account vacating their posts.He also expressed regret at the falling academic standards in the school over the past two years resulting in the school placing 28th on the league table of best performing schools in the Tema metropolis.
Justice Dzamefe said parents, being the major stakeholders in the school, could not sit down unconcerned while the four-member management team who were employees ran down the school.
Parents present at the meeting tasked the executive to arrange a meeting and endeavour to address concerns regarding accountability, classification and qualification of tutors.The PTA chairman said this would be the last option.