The Human Rights Reporters Ghana (HRRG) has condemned the Ghana Education Services’ dismissal of the eight Chaina Senior High School Students.

HRRG in a release stated that the dismissal of students was too harsh and unconstitutional.

This comes after the Ghana Education Service (GES) dismissed eight students of the Chiana Senior High School in the Upper East Region for insulting President Akufo-Addo.

According to them, the punishment meted out to the students “is like killing mosquitoes with a sledgehammer.”

“As a human rights group, our position on the decision by the Dr. Eric Nkansah-led GES is that the decision to dismiss the students is too harsh and does not meet the changing trends in corrective decisions in school behaviour management,” parts of the release stated.

According to HRRG, “the kind of corrective approach used by the GES has the tendency to destroy the future of the students and derail their academic pursuit”, adding that the dismissal contravenes the spirit and letter of the 1992 Constitution on rights to education.

“The corrective options available to the GES should not have included the punitive decision to dismiss these young lives and put them through the rather sad emotional stress which is not good for their health and wellbeing.

“The HRRG expected the government and the two education-focused institutions of state to place a stronger emphasis on counselling and moral values systems and programmes in our secondary schools to further enlighten students on what constitutes acceptable behavior,” the human right group added.

The Human Rights Reporters Ghana entreated the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service to deploy more modern, useful, and forward-looking approaches to dealing with such issues.

Meanwhile, the eight students of Chiana SHS who have been sacked for insulting President Akufo-Addo have pleaded with the education authority and the President to allow them back into the classroom.

The students have also rendered an apology to the President and the GES.

“I am here with my colleagues on our knees to beg the President, the Headmaster, the education office and our fellow Ghanaians. We are sorry for our videos that went viral. We did not mean for it to go viral, it was a childish play, we are sorry and on our knees that the President should call us back,” one of the students said in a video.