A GNA feature by Regina Benneh Siaw
Sunyani, (Bono), June 14, GNA-Senior High School compounds, once a training ground for moulding responsible character has become, in some cases, an arena of indiscipline.
Sadly, student’s acts of lawlessness are taking over their academic purpose, manifested in wanton destruction of school properties.
Sporting events end up with students assaulting students; demonstrations leave dormitories without windows, with food protests ruining dining halls.
The growing incidents of students directly assaulting their teachers are even shameful to mention.
From healthy rivalry to football hooliganism
Today inter-school sporting competitions leave many students at emergency facilities to battle for their lives.
Checks show that in the 18 months, seven SHSs in Ashanti, Central, and Greater Accra Regions have reported post football match violence.
Aggressive students stormed football pitches not to jubilate victories, but rather to assault one another in sporting competitions.
Recently, a harmless inter-school game in Accra ended up with about three students being hospitalised as students used furniture as weapons to attack each other.
In that unfortunate incident, the visibly aggrieved students shattered the windscreen of a school bus with reasons only known to them alone.
Contributory factors
Preliminary investigations show that students’ demand for quality meals is a major factor contributing to recurring incidents of student protest on campuses.
Undeniably students deserve quality meals.
However, the lawless behaviours exhibited by protesting students in seeking redress for their grievances remain the challenging concern for now.
In fact, challenges of delays in payment of caterers under the Ghana School Feeding Programme have manifested in inconsistent food supply as well as poorly cooked meals.
Nonetheless, that does not justify reasons for students to go lawless on campuses and destroy school properties and burn second car tyres and plastic materials.
So, the question is that, if students go wayward and destroy dining halls in registering their displeasure over poorly cooked diets, where will they sit to eat if the problem is resolved.
For now, aggressive students might think that they are raging against the systems and fighting for their rights, however, they will only realize later that they are ruining their own future.
Teacher assaults
The growing reported incidents of students assaulting their teachers on campuses are heartbreaking scenarios.
Many teachers are enemies and targets of their own students. They strive to prepare them for the future.
A mathematics teacher who was reportedly assaulted by a student after the teacher seized his handset during class hours is a shameful and condemnable experience.
More so, two female teachers who were mobbed by some students in one of the schools in Accra is also among the countless incidents of teacher assaults going on in many Senior High Schools (SHSs) in the country.
Recently, a headmaster in one of the SHS in the Ashanti Region was also pelted with stones for suspending five students for indiscipline.
In fact, the oral covenant between the teacher and the student reflected in “I will teach and you will respect me’ breaking in the country.
When students continue to assault their teachers, then, where is the nation heading to as many teachers now walk to the classroom with fear instead of the chalk.
However, as a divine call and amid all these, some teachers ought to continue to strive to shape the minds of these lawless students as others remain reluctant to prepare lesson notes, give and mark assignments.
For some teachers, life is precious and survival is essential.
Students’ lawless behaviours
Acts of indiscipline and lawlessness did not begin overnight, but a cocktail of issues.
In fact, the right channels seeking redress for grievances is gradually collapsing in some SHSs as some students no longer trust the school’s prefect system and the school counselor’s offices.
For some of the students, no decision is taken unless something ugly happens.
According to Mr Kwame Adu Twum, a tutor, shaping or moulding the students remained a collective responsibility.
He said the situation where some families outsourced students’ discipline to teachers alone was not good.
“It’s sad that some of those families also rush to defend their children when they go wayward”, he lamented, adding that, “we are now creating a culture where violence equals relevance.”
Mr Twum noted that weaker punishment meted out on wayward students had worsened the situation now because “student suspensions are always reversed due to political interference.
“Many students don’t respect teachers because they understand that teachers have no right to mete capital punishment on students under the Ghana Education Service protocols.”
The cost effects
In fact, every broken louvre, teacher resignation and student suspension come with a cost as the government spent millions of Ghana cedi annually to replace school properties.
State funds which can be utilized to build new science laboratories for example then end up in repairs works as suspension of classes due to student rioting contributes to poor examination results.
When they obstructed classes today, students’ rioters turned up to blame the system when they failed their examination tomorrow.
Way forward
The growing acts of lawlessness are serious, however not hopeless.
Effective collaboration between schools, families, faith-based organisations and the government is therefore required to address the challenge.
It is also imperative for SHSs to revive and empower the school prefect and counselor systems and thereby create a trusting avenue for students to seek redress for emerging grievances.
More so, the GES and relevant institutions and stakeholders work hard to ensure a zero tolerance for assault on teachers, as well as effective enforcement of GES code of conduct and discipline.
Training up the child in a way he should go is a biblical reference that must guide the proper upbringing and development of students.
Until families stop defending their wayward children, it will also be difficult for the nation to tackle the acts of lawlessness and the level of indiscipline in SHSs.
For Mr Clement Bonsu, a retired teacher, a school without discipline is a prison without walls, saying that: “Students aren’t bad, however they remain untrained.”
He said: “Training takes time, patience, and consistency,” but, however, added, “A stone thrown by a student at a teacher today is the same stone that will block his or her own doorway to success tomorrow”.
“Ghana needs engineers, nurses, pastors, and leaders from classrooms and leaders aren’t made in riots, but in classrooms where respect, hard work, and due process are honored.”
Mr Bonsu advised students to “choose the chalk over the stone and again choose dialogue over destruction”, saying that, “if we lose our schools to indiscipline, we will lose our nation to chaos.”
GNA
Edited by Dennis Peprah/Benjamin Mensah
Writer:Regina Benneh Siaw
Writer’s email:[email protected]