Mr. Salamat has been transferred to the head office of the Ghana Education Service for asking parents to pay GHc80 to procure plastic chairs for first year students, who had benefited from government’s free Senior High School education policy.

[contextly_sidebar id=”1Aq3pA0T36HK04f8Gyf57zu93gSMzdiO”]Earlier reports suggested that, he was transferred because his action was seen as sabotage of government’s much-hyped free SHS education policy, and for speaking to the media about the school’s challenges.

But clarifying the issue on the Citi Breakfast Show on Wednesday, a Deputy Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum explained that Mr. Salamat was transferred not because he spoke to the media.

He said, “If you are charging fees you want parents to pay, of course not, it’s not approved. We’ve given you resources and you have development levy which is contributions that were supposed to be made by parents. If you need anything, you can use part of the development levy to do that. Why do you have to go to the parents and ask them to pay something that the government has already paid? Nobody condones any behaviour or whatsoever that will punish any headmaster for talking to the media,” he added.

Speaking on the Citi Breakfast Show, the incoming President of NAGRAT, Angel Carbonu, argued that such transfers will make headteachers numb.

“What is going to happen is that, a lot of head teachers will be numbed and they will sit on the fence. They will not talk to anyone, they will not expose their problems and challenges to anyone, they will not get help, and at the end of the day, it is our boys and girls whom we have sent to school that will be suffering. If Mr. Salamat has been transferred because of the exposé at La PRESEC we are very unhappy about that, and want that transfer reversed,” Mr. Carbonu said.

Mr. Salamat had earlier been interdicted together with 18 other headmasters of second cycle schools nationwide for charging unapproved fees during the initial stages of the free SHS policy in September 2017.

Mr. Carbonu said such actions are not good for the running of government owned educational institutions the country.

“You will realize that because of the announcement that 19 head teachers have been interdicted, all heads of schools, I can assure you, have gone into the state of comatose…and that when you go there to find out about normal issues, they would not want to talk else they are transferred or victimized. If we push education to that level, we are all going to suffer for it,” he added.

Plight of La PRESEC students

The La PRESEC school was recently in the news for allegedly levying fresh students about GHs 80 to purchase plastic chairs to be used by the students due to the deplorable state of the existing ones.

The action generated public criticism with many accusing the headmaster, Samuel Salamat, of sabotaging the government’s Free SHS policy, but when Citi News visited the school, the situation was indeed dire.

Students spent the day seated on cement blocks and wooden boards due to the non-existence of desks in the school.

The situation, which was highlighted by the Citi News’ Anass Seidu attracted the CEO of McDan Shipping Company, Daniel Makorley, to donate 100 desks as a first tranche of donations to improve the school’s learning infrastructure.

–

By: Godwin Akweiteh Allotey/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Follow @AlloteyGodwin

The post Reverse La PRESEC headmaster’s transfer – NAGRAT appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.

Make way, instead, for a new way so show your handsome, or lovely, mug to the Internet — a budding Web movement that combines high-tech geekery with the human desire to be seen.

Call them “dronies.”

As personal drones find their way into more and more hands, folks have begun using the personal, unmanned aircraft, kitted out with video cameras, to add a little flare to the Internet’s ubiquitous “look at me” self-shots.

“Let’s be honest, selfies aren’t going anywhere,” said Alexandra Dao, a community development manager at video site Vimeo. “But the dramatic reveal aspect adds another level of interest.”

There may be no such thing as a “dronie expert” just yet. But Dao does claim the distinction of coining the term.

About two months ago, she saw that a friend had commented on a video posted to the site by tech entrepreneur Amit Gupta. It was shot on San Francisco’s Bernal Hill, starting with a closeup of Gupta and two friends, then panning up and out to show the San Fran skyline.

The friend “proclaimed it a new kind of shot,” she said, “and I jumped in with the suggestion of ‘dronie’.”

A few more dronies popped up the following day, leading Dao to begin collecting them on a new Vimeo channel.

From there, it started the march to becoming a Web trend. A Web trend with a silly name? Sure. But, hey … it’s no “owling.”

Twitter got into the action last month. At the Cannes Lions advertising festival in France, the social-media service garnered some free publicity using drones to create scenic Vine videos of employees with other festival attendees.

The first was of “Star Trek” actor and social-media star Patrick Stewart, who appears in a new Twitter documentary.

Twitter’s not alone. As these things go, some early Web celebs are emerging in the dronie world.

The Works family, Josh, Jessa and their son, Jack, sold all their stuff and took off on a permanent road trip in their Airstream bus in 2011. (Both parents have jobs that let them work from anywhere). They’re documenting the trip with often stunning photos on Instagram and, somewhere along the way, got their own drone.

Voila! The “first family” of dronies is born.

There was the one three weeks ago from Camp Creek in Oregon, where the drone flies up to showcase the towering trees in the site’s old-growth forest. Or their first, a vertigo-inducing zoom-out on Vance Creek Bridge in Washington, the second-highest built bridge in the United States.

It remains to be seen whether dronies will become just another flash in the pan on the fast-twitch Web, or a more enduring Web presence like the venerable animated GIF.

Dao says she’s seeing some momentum.

“I’ve definitely noticed more interest in using drones for photography and filmmaking, even amongst my friends,” she said.

“Drones just open up so many possibilities for interesting compositions and they’re a lot more accessible than some of the professional equipment that filmmakers have had to use in the past to get these kinds of shots.”

–

Source: CNN

The post Forget selfies — make way for ‘dronies’ appeared first on Citi 97.3 FM - Relevant Radio. Always.