School punishments; How far should they go?

A story about a school’s punishment for some students and which made the headlines in the media last week instantaneously triggered a series of questions in my mind.  How far should punishments in schools go and do schools have behaviour policies they operate with?

The Abetifi Presbyterian High School in the Kwahu District in the Eastern Region was in the news last week for reasons of a very humiliating punishment meted out to a group of boys.

According to a story published in the Daily Guide last week, and a cartoon from the “Akosua archives” of the same paper, published on March 21, 2015, 13 male students of the school in forms two and three failed to attend the school’s morning devotion.  Instead, the boys stayed behind in the dormitory and made noise.

When the headmistress of the school was informed, she instructed the housemaster and three other teachers to bring them out.  The boys were paraded in their boxer shorts in front of an assembly of 1,500 stud