General News of Monday, 3 February 2003

Source: Ghanaian Times

First Years Students Flee Ghana National College

Cape Coast (Central Region) - About 20 first year students of the Ghana National College, Cape Coast, have fled the school. The reason? They fear being exposed and embarrassed for either using fake results to gain admission to the school or gaining admission through the backdoor.

Their bolt was engineered by an announcement by the school authorities last December to investigate the authenticity of the results and other documents of all first year students. The authorities? action was necessitated by an attempt by some of the students to change their names immediately after gaining admission to the school and that aroused suspicion.

The exercise itself has already yielded positive results following the ?arrest? of five students using fake results and documents to enter the school. The school has consequently asked their parents/guardians to withdraw them and they did.

A source close to the school told The Ghanaian Times that some of the students doctored their results while others used other people?s results to gain admission to the school. Others still changed their names and presented fake birth certificates and other documents to obtain admission letters from the school.

The investigations, according to the source were continuing to ensure that all unqualified students were kicked out of the school.

Meanwhile, the headmaster of the school, Robert Koomson-Barnes, has denied that the school was sacking first year students from the school saying that the escape of some students from the school was unknown to the authorities but might be because they entered the school with fake documents.