Director and owner arrested for enrolling foreign students in BECE

Regional News from Tuesday, June 11, 2019

Source: Dailyguidenetwork.com

2019-06-11

The director and owner of the Kekeli International School, 2nd Low Cost, in the suburb of Aflao, in the Ketu municipality, in the Volta region, was arrested for allegedly listing 62 foreign students illegally at the current basic education certification exam.

Both, director, Innocent Agblevor and owner, Ammanuel Mawuli, were arrested on Monday, June 10, 2019 on the first day of the exams and were under the custody of the Aflao police and participated in investigations.

The city's chief executive, Elliot Edem Agbenorwu, who confirmed the incident to Daily Guide, said the two men had been arrested at the Ghana Control Center's examination center at First Low Cost, where 12 schools, including Kekeli International, were to take their exams.

He added that of the 156 students enrolled in exams by Kekeli International, 62 are believed to be Nigerians studying at the Religious Mission School in neighboring Togo.

He explained that the head of the establishment and the landlord had been arrested because preliminary investigations approved by the Municipal Security Council, which he presided over, had revealed that the students had been smuggled and not allowed. Were not properly documented under Ghana's immigration laws.

Secondly, instead of enrolling students as foreign students, as do other Togolese schools such as Sylvia Modern International and Sylvia Montessori, the culprits enrolled the students as Ghanaian students.

Especially when they could have made parents pay students huge amounts of money to do it.

More so, they suspected that the school might have forged their ongoing badessments to make them eligible for registration.

Mr. Agbenorwu, dissatisfied with the situation, explained that MUSEC had information on the unfolding of the second Alfao based Kekeli International School based at a low cost more than a month ago and that it was the only one in the world. He thoroughly did the necessary verifications before acting last Monday.

He stated that, at the time when they suspected a number of schools of doing the same, they organized, in collaboration with the Municipal Education Department, a number of seminars of awareness and educational programs to warn schools in the municipality.

He condemned the bitterness and said that school conduct had serious security, diplomatic and socio-economic consequences, especially in times of terrorist attacks.

"If 62 students could be smuggled into the system, imagine if they were terrorists or criminals?" He asked.

He also added that the government sponsored the registration of the BECE for all Ghanaian students and that, as a result, the smuggling of foreigners entailed an economic burden for the taxpayer.

This could have a ripple effect on the free program of the second cycle of government secondary education.

"In fact, even registration with the national health insurance and registration with a national identity card can be affected," he said.

He said that even though students are allowed to take the exams, they will be monitored.