Accra, Aug. 3, GNA – Professor Felix Nikoi Hammond, the Chairman of the Governing Council of Dominion University College, says character education and discipline are the best approaches to reducing the increasing indiscipline in Ghanaian public and private schools.
These attributes, the Professor stressed, would create a safe and nurturing educational community that fostered academic excellence and personal growth.
Prof Hammond made the call in response to a student in a viral video assaulting a colleague at Adisadel College.
Prof Hammond explained that character education, focused on cultivating positive values such as empathy, respect, self-discipline, punctuality, kindness, congeniality, and responsibility among students.
He indicated that introducing character education in schools would significantly reduce incidents of bullying and promote a healthy school environment.
“Discipline involves the enforcement of consequences for bullying behaviour to deter its recurrence and restore justice to the affected parties,” he explained.
Prof Hammond expressed concern that Ghana’s educational curricula and assessments appear to be disproportionately focused on cognitive development, with little attention paid to the behavioural and character development of students.
“Consequently, the crucial aspects of morality and character development that are a vital ingredient in comprehensive education are frequently ignored”, he stated.
He added that students were not graded for exhibiting praiseworthy character traits, despite their importance in shaping an individual’s overall development.
“By incorporating the principles of character education across all levels of basic, secondary, and tertiary education, students will be incentivized to practise good behaviour,” he said.
To achieve this, he said grades should be awarded for exemplary conduct, which would then contribute to their overall WASSCE performance or university classification.
He said that to ensure that students were held accountable for their misconduct, the grades should also be deducted for anti-social conduct to serve as a deterrent to the students who engaged in these conducts.
Prof Hammond maintained that character education alone would not suffice, adding that a system of education that does not enforce disciplinary measures for inappropriate behaviour was inherently flawed.
According to him, such a system may foster a culture of delinquency and intimidation, which could potentially spill over into professional arenas, such as the workforce or the political arena.
As corporal punishment is now outlawed, he said it was imperative to implement more productive and transformative disciplinary measures.’
These measures, he stressed, would be critical in creating a conducive learning environment and upholding the integrity of educational institutions.
GNA