Managing legal practitioner Gloria Ofori-Boadu of GOB Law Consult has launched a sharp attack on the Ghana Education Service's disciplinary framework for teachers who sexually exploit students, describing the practice of interdiction as inadequate and calling for stronger, more deterrent consequences.

Speaking on Newsfile on Saturday, Ofori-Boadu took direct aim at the GES code of conduct, which states that any staff member who has carnal knowledge of any student — male or female, of any age, with or without consent — shall be guilty of professional misconduct.

"Why does it end there?" she asked. "Professional misconduct alone is not enough."

She noted that under current practice, a teacher facing such allegations is interdicted — meaning removed from active duty while receiving half salary — pending an investigation. If cleared, the teacher returns to duty. If found guilty, the consequence remains largely professional rather than criminal in nature.

"Interdiction is ridiculous. Please. There must be some more strenuous efforts on the part of GES to protect our children," she said.

Ofori-Boadu argued that the policy, as it stands, did not serve as a meaningful deterrent and that sexual abuse of students by teachers should attract consequences that go beyond the loss of a teaching licence.

She also turned her attention to the broader failure to educate children about their rights and personal safety at every stage of their schooling — from kindergarten through to senior high school.

To illustrate how early children are exposed to sexual threat, she recounted a visit she made years ago to a primary school in the suburbs of Accra, where a class one pupil — unprompted — asked why some married men in her compound house did not stay faithful to their wives. The child later revealed that men in her compound had approached her on the way to the bathroom.

"We were so horrified," Ofori-Boadu said.

She said the incident underscored the urgency of embedding structured conversations about rights, boundaries, and personal safety into the school curriculum from the earliest levels, arguing that GES should dedicate time and resources to placing trained counsellors in schools to engage students regularly — including privately — on such issues.

"Get counsellors to talk to the children, educate them," she said. "We can have adults who are well formed to benefit our society when they grow up — not people who are traumatised, who are in pain, who are bitter, who are crying from childhood neglect."

Her remarks came days after the GES interdicted a teacher at Bole Senior High School in the Savannah Region following the circulation of a viral video allegedly showing him in a sexual encounter with a female student in the school's Science laboratory. The GES has reiterated a zero-tolerance stance on sexual misconduct but has not indicated whether criminal referrals are being pursued in the Bole case.