The Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition wishes to express its disquiet over the emerging issues in the Great Lamptey Mills Saga. The Coalition observes that whereas it is well within the legal rights of Mr. Lamptey Mills to opt for an out of court settlement of the case, it is certainly not in the interest of the rights of girls to quality basic education and dignity for the out of court settlement to constitute a logical conclusion.
The Coalition is fully convinced that the logical fact still remains that Mr. Lamptey Mills has not denied having sexual intercourse and impregnating a female basic school student in his school. Indeed, he has accepted responsibility for the shameful act and needs to face the dictates of the rules and sanctions that govern education in this country. School managers who inflict sexual violence to their students are unfit to manage schools. Additionally, schools that do not demonstrate capacity to protect students, especially girls from sexual violence should not be allowed cannot operate in Ghana.
The Coalition therefore welcomes the swift move by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to investigate the issue and take action accordingly. In as much as we encourage GES to add some urgency to its investigations, we also hope that as a matter of public interest, the findings of the investigations and the recommended punitive measures be made public by the GES and fully implemented.
On behalf of Civil Society in education, we reaffirm our commitment to making the school environment safer for girls as a pre requisite for achieving Education For Al in Ghana by 2015.
