1500 Parents Dragged To Court�

About one thousand five hundred parents of pupils of Association International School located in the Airport area have been dragged to an Accra Fast Track High Court over the ownership of Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) levies accrued for over twenty years. Already, an embargo has been placed on the unspecified cash, preventing any withdrawal from the Bank, at least, until the court passes verdict on who is the rightful owner of the levies. The plaintiff, Mr and Mrs. Amoah want every asset of the school, including the PTA levies back, after the state handed over the property back to the couple sometime last year, following the de-confiscation of the property of them. The parents on the other hand, are very much displeased over the treatment being meted out to them by the owners of the school, after pumping millions of Ghana Cedis into the development of the school for over twenty years to transform it into a first-class model, public sector school. The crux of the legal battle over the cash is that, Mr. and Mrs. Amoah owned the property back in the 1980�s, but was confiscated from them by the state. The school, according to the leadership of the PTA, was over the years virtually funded and rapidly developed through the contributions of the parents. The parents, led by its Chairman, J.M Afriyie strongly contend that the levies emanated from the hard earned monies from the parents and cannot be handed over the new owners. Readers would recall that, The Heritage in its Friday, August 7 edition published under the banner headline, �ELITE SCHOOL IN DANGER, 500 PUPILS FACE EJECTION� a story which highlighted the happenings at the school and the effects of the fracas between the PTA and Mr. and Mrs. Amoah on academic work. A sub-committee tasked to see to the smooth hand over of the school after marathon meetings then, came out with a stern instruction. According to that instruction, from September next year: Pupils from kindergarten to primary five would have to vacate the school or be prepared to pay �international fees� since the school was now privately owned. Those from primary six to the Junior High level had three years to phase out of the system. The directive did not go down well with the parents who claimed to have toiled for years to make the school what it is today. The Ghana Education Service has pledged to post the affected pupils to different schools after the deadline, but parents whose wards are there insist that could create serious complications for them, particularly the cost involved in securing new accommodation.