The SHS Sex Probe: A Test of Institutional Courage

The allegations of sexual misconduct against the suspended headmaster of Obuasi Senior High Technical School, Mr. Zakaria Abdulai, have moved beyond the realm of rumour and documentary exposé. They now sit at the doorsteps of the country’s education establishment, demanding answers that go beyond the interdiction of a single school head.

The facts, as they stand, are deeply troubling. Nineteen female students have come forward with allegations ranging from sexual harassment to assault and rape. A 20-year-old Form Two student, accompanied by her father, lodged a formal complaint with the Domestic Violence and Victim Support Unit in Obuasi on August 4, 2026. The headmaster has resigned his position as Juaben Constituency Secretary of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) and withdrawn from the constituency chairmanship race, insisting he is innocent and will clear his name. That is his right, and the presumption of innocence must be respected.

But the resignation of one man, however senior, does not close this chapter. It opens it.

The New Patriotic Party (NPP) National Women’s Organiser, Mavis Hawa Koomson, put it plainly: “A child knows no political party colours. We must never subordinate the dignity, safety, and protection of our children to partisan considerations.” That statement should be framed and hung in every office of the Ghana Education Service. The allegations before us are not an NDC problem or an NPP problem. They are a national problem, and the response must rise above the petty arithmetic of political advantage.

Already, the case has exposed troubling questions about the speed and seriousness with which education authorities responded. The Old Students’ Association of Obuasi SHTS wrote to the Ministry of Education and the GES on July 26, raising concerns about the headmaster. It reportedly took 79 days and a journalistic exposé before the matter commanded public attention. That gap is not merely an administrative failure. It is a moral one. If the account that the Ashanti Regional Director personally sought the intervention of the GES Director-General and received no response is accurate, then accountability cannot end with the removal of regional and district directors.

We note the decision of the GES to direct Dr. William Amankrah Appiah and Mr. Kwamena Owusu-Nketiah to step aside pending investigation. That is a welcome step. But the call by former Education Ministry spokesperson Kwasi Kwarteng for the Education Minister, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, and the GES Director-General to also step aside deserves serious consideration. An investigation into who knew what, when they knew it, and why action was delayed cannot be credible if it is overseen by the very officials whose conduct is in question.

Equally, we commend the swift interdiction of Mr. Abdulai and the directive by the Education Minister to the Criminal Investigations Department to conduct a comprehensive criminal investigation. The Parliament’s Committee on Human Rights has called for speedy prosecution and the maximum sentence if guilt is established. These are the right words. Now they must be matched with action.

The victims; young girls whose education and dignity have been placed at risk, must be protected from intimidation and supported through every step of this process. Their courage in coming forward must not be met with delay, obfuscation, or the weary machinery of institutional self-preservation.

This case will be remembered not for the allegations alone, but for how the state responded. Ghana’s children are watching. Their parents are watching. And history is watching. The least we owe them is a process that is swift, independent, transparent, and uncompromising. Anything less would be a betrayal of the very trust that schools are built upon.