TEMA PARENTS SCHOOL RESOLVES DISPUTE, DAILY GRAPHIC, WED FEB 23, 2011 (PAGE 11)

Story: Della Russel Ocloo, Tema

A FOUR member management team of the Tema Parents Association School who had disagreements with the school’s Parents Teacher Association (PTA) over demands of accountability has made reconciliatory moves towards addressing problems facing the institution.
The two parties recently collided with each other when the PTA executives headed by an Appeals Court Judge, Justice Senyo Dzamefe called for the institution's accounts to be audited in addition to the provision of a data on the classification and qualification of tutors.
They also warned the PTA to back off its activities as the school no longer needed its existence to operate.
The meeting which registered a huge attendance from parents also saw three of the four management team made up of the Mrs Mabel Ampofo, Mr Maxwell Doku and Mrs Nyarko as well as the entire teaching staff present. Conspicuously missing was the Acting Headmaster, Mr Abraham Ekow Afer who was said to have taken ill prior to the meeting day.
The meeting however went off gear when some incensed parents charged at the executives regarding the presence of this reporter whom they heckled and described as an intruder. According to them, media reportage regarding the challenges of the school in the past have disgusting, thus, the presence of one in their midst ought to be immediately resolved. The unruly interaction led to a halt in proceedings prompting the legal counsel for the PTA, Mr Daniel Kofi Amerli to intervene.
Addressing the gathering, Chairman of the PTA, Justice Dzamefe expressed reservations at the false representations to the general public which suggest executives engaged in an open fight with management in an attempt to take over the operations of the school’s non-existent account.
He debunked suggestions that, PTA executives attempted to re-register and manage the school, an idea which he was accused to have engineered.
He also questioned why PTA exutives would want control over an account which was non-existent resulting in the management teams decision to deposit over GH¢800,000 in hard cash per term as fees into a an interest yielding teacher’s welfare account which has two teachers as signatories.
Mr Dzamefe told the gathering that, the protracted legal battles that plague the school over the last three years involving the school’s out gone board and its embattled headmistress, Mrs Nsaki Kaseem, led to a consensus between the PTA and Management to register the PTA to enable executives work around the clock towards disposing outstanding legal issues.
He pointed out that, the existence of PTA’s in the management of schools under the Ghana Education Code was to ensure that parents as stakeholders can make meaningful contributions to the growth of the school.
He assured parents that, the two parties after fruitful deliberations regarding the issues under contention have resolved to work together in the interest of their children who are of top priority. Mrs Mabel Ampofo, an assistance headmistress and a member of the school’s management on her part express management’s regret at the hiccups with the PTA executives which she resulted from the limited communication gap between the two.
That she said led to various misconceptions about management, PTA strained relationship and assured her team’s commitment to work together towards achieving a common purpose.