The Ghana Education Service (GES) says no pupil will be sacked for not wearing the new school uniforms for Junior High School students when the academic year starts in September.
Commenting on its implementation, the Director-General of GES, Professor Kwasi Opoku Amankwa said the old uniform will be phased out over a three year period.
He noted that further discussions will be held at the regional level to ensure no such disruption occurs.
“We are phasing it out over a three year period and when we meet with our regional directors, we are going to discuss that as well so that we won’t have a situation where students will be sacked out of class because they have not purchased the new school uniform.”
“Come September, we hope that they will be on the market for parents to procure and I believe that the points where people buy the uniforms, they should be on the market for them to be procuring.”
The new uniform, which faced some criticism when it was announced, will have a striped shirt with the Ghana flag, a graduation cap, a certificate and books printed in it to be worn over a khaki skirts’ for girls and over khaki shorts for boys.
The service has explained that the flag printed in the shirt symbolises patriotism, the graduation cup and certificate stood for intelligence and superiority while the book depicts knowledge for empowerment.
The cost of the uniforms will be borne by parents though the government will cater to students in deprived areas in line with existing arrangements.