Discipline in Schools; N/R Girls Education officer call for readjustment of corporal Punishment policy.
Northern Regional Girls Education Officer, Linda Amoah has attributed growing indiscipline at junior and senior high schools in the country to current system that empowered children more than the teachers and parents.
According to her so many things have been given to the children as education and yet when it comes to practical’s the children are lacking.
In 2017, the Ghana Education Service (GES) officially banned all forms of corporal punishment of children in schools in Ghana. The GES said decision was part of efforts aimed at promoting a safe and protective learning environment for children. In January 2019, GES directed that a positive discipline toolkit which gives alternatives to corporal punishments be adopted by all teachers.
But Madam Linda Amoah explained that the current system teaches the children their rights, but the responsibility aspect is silence so the children want to apply their rights at homes arguing they are not supposed to do things their parents want them to do.
Parents, Madam Linda in the other hand are also complaining that the children do not more respect them and taken their lives upon themselves.
Children are complaining that their parents are not providing their needs and for that matter they are on the streets with their peers. Teachers are also complaining that they cannot discipline children because the rights of today says teacher should cane or discipline a child.
Speaking to Zaa News on the sidelines of a day stakeholders engagement organized by Norsaac, Madam Linda suggested that Ghana would have to sit up to strategies the policies that have been given to the schools as far as discipline is concerned.
She explained that teachers now sit unconcern to look at children going into the ditch because of fear of being punished by the system which favors students.
She pleaded with policymakers to re-examine the current state of the policy to see if it is still workable and beneficial and if not, there is the need for re-examination of it. Ghana, Madam Linda stated would have to sit up to strategized the policies that have been given to schools as far discipline is concerned.
She explained that teachers now sit unconcerned while students misbehaving because they know if they discipline a child he or she will be in trouble. She agreed that caning is not the only solution or the only way to discipline a child but it cannot be erased completely. Respect these days she observed are eroding in schools because children are made aware that they are not to be corrected.
‘I don’t think in a society it is right that everyone wants to claim their right in the negative way, it would not augur well and that’s why drug abuse has become a big even in schools because teachers cannot ask students why they are taking it on campus’, she explained.
Implementers of the policies are telling policy makers the reality on the ground and they cannot say they are not aware of students misbehaving.
According to her, most students are drug addicts now and policy makers cannot say they are not aware.
She her gratitude to Norsaac for taking it upon itself to bring stakeholders together to deliberate on the issue and encouraged CSOs and NGOs to engage policy makers more to readjust some of the policies, especially those concerning discipline in school.