I have heard it before. The argument that the boarding school system should be scrapped is not new. It surfaced some years back and died a natural death.  It did not tickle anyone.

Last week, however, the argument resurfaced in the wake of the Adisadel College bullying saga. But should boarding schools be really discarded as useless?

In the recent debate, one case that has been made is that the indiscipline one sees displayed in the youth of today is all part of bad influences and social vices picked up from boarding school.

How can anyone say that social vices such as smoking and stealing for example have their antecedents from the boarding house? I beg to differ.

Holistic training

The boarding school system is simply the best thing that could have happened to us in terms of holistic training of our school children, from days of old to the present. It is difficult for those of us who entered the boarding system as far back as age nine to deny the benefits therefrom and which have shaped our lives as individuals, parents, community members, workers and overall, as citizens.

Boarding schools have been the place where learning to be independent starts. It inculcates in those who pass through its walls, a sense of unity, social cohesion, a deep sense of community living and accepting all with no barriers. Not only that. The system teaches one to respect, learn to share and live for others to live too.

The values the boarding school system bestows on students are that when old boys and girls meet, they reminisce endlessly. It is the system that builds and cements a new bond of sisterly and brotherly relationships from the five or seven years of living together in a boarding house. In some cases, the bonding is even richer than blood relations.

But the social values aside, the boarding system encouraged learning and serious studying whether on an individual or group basis. The atmosphere and the supervision are conducive to more studying and less mucking about. The competitions to outdo each other with eyes on speech day prizes do not give one the opportunity to be lazy about it.   

Of course in every set-up, one is bound to encounter those who will disturb the peace and ruffle the norm.  This happens even in homes where both parents are supervising and are ready to discipline waywardness. 

Lawlessness and impunities in our boarding schools are becoming the increasing concern of those calling for the scrapping of boarding schools. Those acts are definitely condemnable because they are least expected in an educational institution or a school’s campus.

However, those isolated cases should not be generalised. Lawlessness and impunities have today become rife in our lives, even at the highest levels, manifesting in corruption, abuse of power and indiscipline.  In the workplaces, in communities, and even in churches, one hears reports of lawlessness and impunities.

Generation Z

It gets even scarier with Generation Zs, the generation where everything must be instant and who refuse to listen and toe the line. These are the generations one is faced with in our schools.

In reality, however, who is to blame for the universal problem of Generation Zs but ourselves as parents, grandparents and relations? They are the pitiable generation missing out on parental presence and guidance right from infancy.

Their parents never have time for them because they are busy chasing wealth. The only time they have for them is the weeks of holiday abroad where they fly them in and out in business class and shop expensively to compensate.

Back home, they become the darling boys and girls of house help and childminders who really are not expected to discipline them when they are in the wrong. They would eat and leave plates for someone else to tidy up.  Filth in their rooms is not their responsibility but that of the paid house help.

Unlike our generation where at least one parent was home most of the time, present in our lives, and gave strict directions. Basic ethics and good behaviour in the home were taught and woe betides whoever broke house rules.

Our generation responsibly passed on what we learnt from our parents to our children and even ended up doing more for them because they had to do better than we did. Those millennial children learnt even more and benefitted from the boarding school system.

If you ask me and I am sure most of my schoolmates too, boarding school was a blessing in our lives and we ensured our children and grandchildren also benefitted from the same system. There may be shortfalls, no doubt, but that is what the current boarding school administrators and perhaps the Ghana Education Service will have to look at critically.

In our time, there were no Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs), and one hardly heard about governing boards. Today, all the checks and balances are in place to help boarding school administrators work better and more efficiently.

If there are any loopholes allowing Generation Zs to give the boarding system a bad name with undesirable characters, the checks and balances must be applied to the letter and disciplines administered.

The boarding school system is simply the best. It is time to shape it and preserve it.