The spokesperson of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Yaw Opoku Mensah has advised students to avoid any activity which may lead to an interruption in their education.

His advice follows the dismissal of eight students of Chiana Senior High School for insulting President Akufo-Addo.

According to him, students must take lessons from the actions taken against the students for their misconduct.

“This should be a clarion call on all of us, especially students everywhere that we need to take a cue from this and advise ourselves to desist from activities that would not create a conducive atmosphere for teaching and learning,” he said.

In an interview with Blessed Sogah on The Pulse, Mr. Opoku Mensah explained that the move to dismiss the students was because they had violated the acceptable standards of behaviour by the Ghana Education Service.

“Every SHS student immediately you enter form one you are taken through an orientation process conducted under the guidance and counselling unit of the school where the do’s and don’ts of the school are spelt out clearly to them….even if you take the exeat book the dos and don’ts are still spelt at the back of the exeat book with the appropriate punishment printed in the book,” he told Blessed.

Justifying the education services’ decision to dismiss the students, he said “we cannot say we are not aware or we did not know the consequences of their actions. They knew what they were doing and we have no option than to apply the sanctions that comes with it.”

“Investigations went as far as establishing whether there was an influence in that, what motivated the student to engage in that or to do that but the investigation has been well established that they did that on their own accord. What it means is that they were aware of whatever they were doing,” he added.

The GES after a meeting with parents of the students on Wednesday dismissed the eight students of the Chiana Senior High School in the Upper East Region for insulting President Akufo-Addo.

Prior to the dismissal, the students had been on suspension.  

The GES says its investigation into the incident confirmed that the students used unsavoury language against the President. 

Consequently, the said students have apologised for their misconduct and appealed for the reversal of their dismissal.

However, when asked whether the GES had noticed the video of the student rending an apology to at least reduce the punishment, the spokesperson said he had not come across any such video.

“You are telling me. It has not come to our attention yet, I believe as authorities when it comes to our attention, we will look at it and see how we can remedy it,” he said.