The Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) wants all stakeholders to take immediate action to address the increasing acts of indiscipline being recorded in some second-cycle schools.

GNAT condemned barbarism in no uncertain terms and expressed regret and disappointment at the behaviour of students of Senior High Schools (SHSs) who perpetrated those acts, especially in recent times.

“These are the people we are bringing up in our schools to manage the country in the years ahead, and they are ready to kill, maim and destroy; very sad,” the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Musah, said in an interview with the Daily Graphic.

“We call on all like-minded bodies and groups in society to wage a campaign with us to end this blot on our national conscience and the education front.

We entreat the Committee on the Education Forum, as well as the Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service, to find an antidote to this wanton behaviour in our schools. 

“If we don’t, we remain hostage in the hands of our children, and we shall have ourselves to blame in the long run. Let’s remember, they say, ‘procrastination is the thief of time’, so the time to act is now,” Mr Musah said.

The association said in the past few days, for instance, educators, school authorities, and the Ghanaian society had witnessed, to their chagrin, the barbaric punishment of junior students by senior students at Accra Academy using a machete on their juniors, as well as the fracas between students of Kinbu Secondary/Technical School and Accra High School, Kaneshie Secondary Technical School and Accra Academy, and between the Kumasi Technical Institute (KTI) and the Anglican Senior High School, across the street in Kumasi.

Others

Mr Musah cited the killing of the 18-year-old final-year student of O’Reilly Senior High School in Accra last year and the remand of four final-year students of Effiduase Senior High/Commercial School (EFFISCO) in the Ashanti Region over allegations of gang-raping in 2020 as some of the incidents of indiscipline in the schools.

The GNAT General Secretary also mentioned the remand of 39 students of the Krobea Asante Technical and Vocational School, Effiduase Asokore, in the Ashanti Region by the Asokore-Mampong Magistrate Court, for causing damage to the school and private property following a violent demonstration on January 22, 2023. The school was also shut down indefinitely.

In addition, the association mentioned the vandalism and destruction of school property recorded in Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School in Kumawu in the Ashanti Region, at the Ndewura Jakpa Senior High/Technical in the Savannah Region, following demonstrations allegedly caused by the strict supervision of the school authorities, during the sitting of the West African Senior School Certificate Examinations (WASSCE).

The association also recounted the clash between Kinbu SHS and the Accra Technical Training Centre in which a student lost his life, unfortunately; the burning down of portions of the Sandema Senior High School in the Upper East Region following a protest over seizure of students’ mobile phones; the incident at Adisadel College, Cape Coast, in which a senior student was caught on tape, banging the head of a junior student against a steel bunk bed, injuring him in the cheek. 

Salaga

Also on the radar is the arrest of 20 students of the Salaga SHS for engaging in a free-for-all fight.

“We express our disdain with these uncouth and criminal acts of such students in all our schools and call for an immediate halt to them to safeguard other students, management and teachers of the schools, and all other ancillary logistics, science and computer laboratories, furniture, to set the proper tone in the schools, to guarantee a safe environment for teaching and learning to take place, as envisioned,” Mr Musah said.

He stressed that the indiscipline of those students had sometimes been extended beyond the confines of their schools as they had descended on some personalities in society.

“For instance, eight female students of Chiana Senior High School in the Upper East Region were caught on video, allegedly insulting the then President Akufo-Addo, and consequently dismissed, but recalled, per the intervention of the then President,” Mr Musah recalled.

He also pointed to the case of a teacher of Asuoso Senior High School in Offinso in the Ashanti Region, Ishmael Famous, who was stabbed in the left eye and consequently lost that eye for asking a loitering student to enter the classroom, as well as Asare-Menako who was assaulted by a group of candidates he was supervising at Accra Academy, for seizing their mobile phones when the examination was in session.

The supervisor died on October 11, 2005, from the injuries he suffered. 

Incidents

Mr Musah said GNAT had recalled all of those incidents to prove how serious the situation had become and how lives, property and society at large were at risk in the hands of students on the loose.

“In actual fact, they could be said not to be students but would-be assassins, bandits and louts in school uniforms and dresses. They have no conscience, no manners and no regard for anything and anybody.

They lack candidness, character, emotional stability, decorum and circumspection,” the GNAT General Secretary said.