Achimota School has embraced Tyrone Marhguy, one of the Rastafarian students who was initially denied admission by the school because of his dreadlocks. Tyrone Marhguy is now part of the school’s team for the 2023 Ghana National Science and Maths Quiz (NSMQ).
The school announced this on its Facebook page on Friday, June 2, 2023, with a photo of its NSMQ team which featured Tyrone Marhguy.
Achimota School has not won the NSMQ since 2004 and hopes to end its drought this year.
Tyrone Marhguy and Oheneba Nkrabea were turned away by Achimota School in 2021 for refusing to cut their dreadlocks despite passing their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) and being placed in the school through the computerized placement system.
The Human Rights Court 1 Division of the High Court in Accra later ordered Achimota School to admit the two Rastafarian students.
The presiding judge, Justice Gifty Agyei Addo, ruled that the Attorney-General failed to provide a legal justification for limiting the rights of the two Rastafarian students to education based on their dreadlocks.
The Attorney General had argued that the two students had not completed or returned their acceptance of admission forms and therefore could not claim to have been denied admission.
But the students, their parents, and lawyers contended that this was a case of violating their fundamental rights based on their religion and religious practices.
Justice Gifty Adjei Addo dismissed the arguments of the Attorney General and granted all the reliefs sought by the students, except for compensation in Tyrone Marhguy’s case.
She also described as absurd the suggestion by the Attorney General that the two students were not students in the first place.
She therefore directed Achimota School to admit the two Rastafarian students.
