NPC to integrate 2015 recommendations in draft document

The National Peace Council, NPC, will revisit recommendations from a 2015 religious rights conference that was instituted during the John Dramani Mahama presidency, its Chairman has said.

According to NPC Chairman Rev. Dr Ernest Adu-Gyamfi, the NPC hopes to conclusively deal with the subject of religious rights in Church-run mission schools as part of current engagement with stakeholders.

GhanaWeb monitored his comments when he paid a visit to the National Chief Imam to discuss Wesley Girls High School’s recent ban on fasting which affected Muslim students.

“In my interaction with the Ministry of Education, we have come to a consensus that within the next two weeks, there should be an MoU governing all mission schools, all public schools in this country.

“Also specifying clearly, what are the rights, the privileges and also the responsibilities of every individual who goes to these schools and we want this document to be documented and signed by all parties who agree to it,” he said.

He stressed that the Peace Council’s proposed document will serve as a concrete guide going forward for relations between the state and church-run educational facilities.

“… at the end of the day, if you take that document, everybody knows what can be done and what cannot be done and we believe that if this is pursued to its logical conclusion, this matter will come to an end and Ghana will not see this again.

“This document will also incorporate some of the issues that the Peace Council also recommended in 2015 when the hijab issue came up. Some recommendations were made that were not implemented to its logical conclusion, we are bringing those recommendations into this document.”

The said conference was around the issue of the hijab (headgear) wearing in public Senior High Schools and was spearheaded by the NPC along with other stakeholders at the Kofi Annan Peacekeeping Training Center in early 2015.