A UK-based safeguarding officer has dismissed the committee’s work on the Obuasi SHTS case as a waste of time. He says sending a female student to deliver food to a staff member’s home was itself a safeguarding breach.
Amartei K. Amartey, Safeguarding Officer at Kingsdale Secondary Schools, UK, said the committee should have centred boundaries in its assessment.
Speaking on JoyNews’ PM Express on Tuesday, he questioned why the student was placed in that situation.
“Why is a girl child carrying food to a staff member’s house? That’s a safeguarding issue. That’s a red flag,” he said.
“For me, it’s just been a waste of time.”
His criticism follows Manasseh Azure Awuni’s JoyNews investigation, Inside the Dreaded Headmaster’s Bungalow. It examines allegations of sexual abuse involving the headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School, Zakaria Abdulai.
An earlier committee investigating the school’s August disturbances found that sexual harassment allegations were not substantiated by the evidence presented. However, it also raised concerns about professional boundaries and students’ access to staff residences.
That inquiry is separate from the fresh investigation following the JoyNews exposé.
Mr Amartey argued that the safeguarding issue existed regardless of the staff member’s denial of wrongdoing.
“Because the girl child found herself in a vulnerable place,” he said.
He explained that safeguarding rules protect both staff and students. He argued that following those rules helps prevent situations where competing accounts become difficult to establish.
Asked whether a teacher in the UK could send a child from the dining hall to deliver food to the teacher’s residence, he replied: “Never. You won’t even dream about it.”
He said such conduct would carry serious consequences in the UK.
“That action of asking a female student to carry your food from the dining hall to your house—that alone, you must go. You will lose your license and possibly be charged.”
For Mr Amartey, the committee should have confronted that breach at the outset.
“And you broke the rule. So for me, it shouldn’t even go beyond this.”
The GES says the headmaster remains interdicted while investigations continue. The allegations have not been established.