Need For Students To Stop Vandalising School Property

Discipline is defined by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary as, “the practice of training people to obey rules and orders and punishing them if they do not”. The 2016/2017 and this academic year 2017/2018, have seen students in Senior High Schools (SHS) in parts of the country taking the law into their hands to demonstrate and destroy school property with careless abandon at the least provocation. The latest of such incident is the closure of the Erimon Senior High and Technical School in the Lawra District of the Upper West Region. This follows what has been described as a violent life-and-property-threatening demonstration by the students who were protesting against disciplinary measures in the school. Reports have it that parts of the dormitories, administrative block and classrooms were damaged in the unrest. Nobody is against students in educational institutions making their grievances known for amicable resolution.The violent nature of such demonstrations to present their grievances and the cost to infrastructure and personal property of teachers is unacceptable and must be condemned in no uncertain terms by all well-meaning Ghanaians.

Last month, at least ten students of the GyamaaPensan SHS in the Ashanti Region were hospitalized when they sustained injuries during a demonstration against the headmaster of the school. The aftermath of the demonstration was the vandalisation of school property, including the headmaster’s residence and the assembly hall. It would also be recalled that in December last year, students of the Fumbisi SHS/Agriculture School in the Bulisa South District of the Upper East Region, rioted because of delayed supper, and vented their spleen on the food store and looted food items. They went ahead to destroy property running into thousands of Ghana cedis with about eleven students sustaining various degrees of injury. Still in the Upper East Region, a violent demonstration by students of the Bolgatanga SHS over the death of a student led to the destruction of about three vehicles belonging to their teachers as well as a teacher’s residence. These are but a few incidents of vandalism in the Senior High Schools and the time has come to nib them in the bud. These disturbing and worrying incidents, apart from the high cost of repairing or replacing damaged property to be borne by the school authorities and, by extension, the government, sometimes have the tendency to disrupt academic work and consequently the performance of students.

One of the problems with the implementation of the Free SHS policy is inadequate infrastructure to accommodate the increasing number of students. It becomes worrying if the same students who are complaining, during demonstrations vandalise the existing infrastructure. As we all expect school authorities to manage students’ grievances properly and professionally, through regular interactions, students must also recognise that as part of their training and upbringing, they must obey the rules, regulations and orders of their various institutions. Parents must also talk to their wards to be of good behaviour in school.

BY: DAN OSMAN MWIN, HEAD OF PUBLIC RELATIONS, MINISTRY OF EDUCATION.

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