The Ministry of Education should first assess the effectiveness of existing disciplinary policies in senior high schools before introducing new measures to tackle rising cases of indiscipline, Executive Director of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST), Dr Peter Anti, has advised.

He said decisions on school discipline must be based on evidence and proper research, rather than assumptions about what may be driving recent incidents of violence in some schools.

Dr Anti believes the government has the capacity to undertake a comprehensive assessment to identify the underlying causes of indiscipline and determine whether existing policies need to be reviewed.

He specifically called for an evaluation of the decision taken around 2015–16 to abolish corporal punishment and introduce a positive discipline toolkit in schools.

He questioned whether the policy shift had been assessed almost a decade after its implementation.

“To what extent have they evaluated that shift in policy in 2015-16? That is almost 10 years now. Have we evaluated that shift in policy to see whether it is the change in the policy direction that is causing this kind of indiscipline that we are talking about?” he said.

Speaking on Citi FM on Wednesday, September 2, 2026, Dr Anti cautioned against hastily linking the recent incidents to the abolition of corporal punishment.

“I think that we need to hasten slowly with attributing reasons to why some of these things are happening,” he said.

His comments follow violent incidents at Okuapeman Senior High School and Mount Sinai Senior High School in the Eastern Region, where reprisal attacks led to the burning of school facilities.

Six Okuapeman SHS students were injured and hospitalised, while classrooms, a Visual Arts studio and a teachers’ office were reportedly destroyed, alongside examination papers and certificates.

A storeroom and the boys’ washroom at Mount Sinai SHS were also burnt. Dr Anti further urged authorities to strengthen security in senior high schools, arguing that relying largely on watchmen at school entrances may not be sufficient to detect potential threats and prevent conflicts from escalating.