Why the National Compass Must Guide the Mission Ship [ARTICLE]

By Dickens Asare Ofori Adjei

A few weeks or months ago, the controversy was about a hair brouhaha. Now, the battle has deepened, shifting from the visible sign on the head to the invisible sanctuary of the soul. The case now before the Supreme Court concerning Wesley Girls’ Senior High School (SHS) is, without a shred of equivocation, a direct litmus test for the kind of country we are today.

The suit filed by Shafic Osman, challenging the school’s alleged restrictions on Muslim students, exposes a fissure in our collective understanding of what it means to be a truly public institution in a religiously pluralistic society. This moment—born from the initial dispute over the denial of a student’s right to observe the Ramadan fast—forces us to confront the ghosts of history still casting long shadows over our national harvest.

The core contention is this: Can a school that began as a magnificent oak planted by missionary hands continue to dictate sectarian weather once its roots are fully watered by the national treasury?

The Legal Identity of the State-Funded School

The entire argument boils down to a question of legal identity. For the founding religious bodies—the Christian Council of Ghana and the Ghana Catholic Bishops’ Conference—the state’s support represents “a partnership, not a takeover.” They insist on maintaining the right to run schools according to their century-old, faith-based ethos, arguing that parents who enroll their children tacitly agree to abide by the Christian tradition. It is the argument of the ancient vineyard owner asserting absolute dominion over his soil.

Yet when the sun of the state shines upon the school’s fields, and teachers’ salaries are drawn from the Consolidated Fund—as mandated by the Ghana Education Service Act, 1995—the land acquires a new, shared title. Legal scholar Professor Stephen Kwaku Asare (Kwaku Azar) cuts through this duality with the sharp machete of law:
“Wesley Girls is no longer a Methodist private school. It is a public school, fully under the Government of Ghana,” he asserts, insisting that the Constitution must now take the front seat over denominational tradition.

The legal instruments support this position. Under the Pre-Tertiary Education Act, 2020 (Act 1049), a public school is one established or maintained wholly or partly with monies approved by Parliament from the Consolidated Fund or other public resources. When an institution relies entirely on public funds—taxpayer money contributed by citizens of all faiths—it becomes inherently bound by the public duties of non-discrimination and neutrality.

The Plaintiff’s Stance

Most crucially, the plaintiff, Lawyer Shafic Osman, argued in an interview with JURIST News on January 27, 2025, that such compulsion constitutes an “establishment of religion,” violating Article 56 of the 1992 Constitution. The framers of our democracy, mindful of the perils of ideological homogeneity, prohibited Parliament from enacting laws that impose compulsory religious programs on the people of Ghana. The Constitution is a compass fixed north toward pluralism, and no public institution may be allowed to redirect it toward a single denominational destination.

Osman’s case seeks to establish a national framework. He made his broader intent clear:
“Our case specifically challenges Wesley Girls’ ‘No Islam’ policy. We’re asking the court to direct the Ghana Education Service (GES) to develop guidelines on religious accommodation in public institutions of learning… The rights to religious freedom under Article 21(1)(c) and 56 should mean that public institutions make reasonable accommodations for students’ religious practices.”

He further emphasized:
“This case is ultimately about ensuring that all students in Ghana, regardless of faith, have the right to practice their religion without undue restrictions.”

Equality and the Common Well

Defenders of the old order argue in parables of their own. Former General Secretary of the Christian Council, Rev. Opuni Frimpong, maintains: “You cannot leave available Muslim schools and come to our Christian schools to dictate terms.”

But this view misunderstands the nature of public resource distribution. Once a citizen pays taxes into the common well, that citizen gains an equal and inalienable right to access the schools sustained by that shared resource.

This constitutional reality is reflected in the nation’s religious composition, as reported by the 2021 Population and Housing Census (PHC):
– Christianity: 71.3%
– Islam: 19.9%
– Traditionalist faiths: 3.2%
– No Religion/Other: 5.6%

It is the combined, diverse contributions of this ledger of all faiths that maintain every public school.

As the legal maxim states, the right to religious manifestation may be limited only if prescribed by law and necessary in a democratic society for purposes such as public safety or health—restrictions that must be proportionate and must not nullify the right itself.

My own schooling at Pope John Senior High School and Minor Seminary (POJOSS), a Catholic institution, offers a useful example of harmonious coexistence. While maintaining its Catholic ethos—such as reserving the position of Head Prefect exclusively for Catholic students—the school also demonstrated mature religious accommodation. Muslim students faced no restrictions on fasting or prayer and freely observed Ramadan and daily prayers. This proves that a religious-founded school can fully respect students’ rights to religious practice.

The Decolonial Imperative for the 21st-Century Learner

This debate is deeply entwined with Ghana’s post-colonial identity crisis. Mission schools, though pioneering education, operated within a colonial tradition that allowed religious programs to flourish on public funding. Today, national education policy itself requires conceptual decolonization—a purging of uncritically inherited restrictive practices (Donkor, 2025; Atiemo, 2010).

Modern curriculum standards require schools to produce students capable of critical thinking, reasoning, and respecting diverse perspectives (Ministry of Education, n.d.). Schools are explicitly tasked with raising morally conscious and tolerant learners who promote peaceful coexistence and national development. This demands a pedagogy that discourages rote memorization of singular doctrines and instead encourages objective analysis of diverse beliefs (Assanful, 2022).

If a state-funded school—mandated to foster Glocal Citizenship and mutual respect—becomes a tool for suppressing minority faiths, it risks becoming an ideological battleground, threatening the peaceful coexistence Ghana currently enjoys.

The Master Key of the Constitution

The Ghanaian Constitution is not an antique cabinet to be admired from afar. This great Book of the Republic is the master key to the national home. It dictates that every child, regardless of the founder’s faith, must find in a public institution both a sanctuary for the soul and equal opportunity for the mind.

The Supreme Court is now tasked with turning that key, making clear that religious freedom is not a privilege granted by a school but an inviolable right guaranteed by the State.

Thus, the core issue in the Wesley Girls’ litigation is whether the school’s policies fall within constitutionally permissible cooperation and accommodation—or cross the line into constitutionally prohibited establishment and coercion.

In comparative perspective, this case is a constitutional stress test. Like a building erected under one architectural era but later modified for modern seismic standards, Ghana’s mission schools must ensure that their century-old structures are now constitutionally sound. The bedrock of religious freedom and non-discrimination, mandated by the 1992 Constitution, must be strong enough to support the diverse population that public funding obligates them to serve.

The writer, Dickens Asare Ofori Adjei, is a freelance journalist, author, and advocate who champions Media and Information Literacy and vehemently opposes violence against women and children.
Email: dickensadjei20@gmail.com