The issue of students peddling drugs on various campus especially with pre-tertiary students joining the menace was up for discussion on the floor of Parliament on Thursday.
Responding to a concern raised by a member of the House on growing indiscipline and drugs at the pre-tertiary level, the Minister of Education, Mr Haruna Iddrisu said he agreed that there was a problem and a growing indiscipline on senior high schools’ campuses.
“You will be alarmed that in some secondary schools, a student will have the courage to go and sell wee (Indian hemp), marijuana or cannabis on the school campus and this should merit outright dismissal because if this does not happen, he will poison the rest of the students who are completely innocent,” the minister said.
Mr Haruna Iddrisu, said he has already directed heads of senior high schools (SHS) to dismiss students peddling narcotics and marijuana (weed) on campuses.
He warned that if students selling those hard drugs were not sacked, they were likely to “poison the rest of students who were completely innocent”.
Let’s review punishment regime
“So, we may have to rethink and review our punishment regime and to cloak the Ghana Education Service with authority to deal ruthlessly with any student who misbehaves,” he said.
The Education Minister’s response followed a concern raised by the Member of Parliament from Kwadaso, Professor Kingsley Nyarko, who had asked about the interventions the ministry had implemented or considering to implement to promote discipline in educational institutions, especially those at the pre-tertiary level.
Heaviest sanctions must be enforced
The minister said the incidence of indiscipline in Ghana’s educational institutions was alarming and in many instances he had described such incidence as “un-Ghanaian”.
“When you see a Ghanaian student wield a gun in a secondary school, that cannot be the training of a Ghanaian child,” he said.
He cited an indiscipline case at the Prempeh College in Kumasi where the Old Boys decided to help them with some CCTV cameras only for students to go and pull them down because “they do not want to be recorded”.
“That is indiscipline and that is unacceptable and the heaviest sanctions should be meted out to them by the Ghana Education Service,” he said.
With capital punishment regime repealed, Mr Iddrisu lamented that the move has created some laxity, with many students who engaged in indiscipline going unpunished for those unacceptable conducts.
Messing up teacher
The minister further cited a case during the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) where some students decided to beat up a teacher because he would not help them cheat in writing the exams.
“We have had an incident of that nature recorded that because the teacher and invigilators would be strict and vigilant, they decided to mess up with the teacher.
He, therefore, justified the need for the review punishment regime and cloaking the GES with authority to deal ruthlessly with any student who misbehaved.
Shared responsibility
The minister pointed out that parenting and socialisation was a shared responsibility of “father and the teacher”.
To that end, he said the government was committed to dealing with the indiscipline.
He told the House that sometime next week, he would appear before the House to make a statement on the growing indiscipline and steps that government was taking to arrest it.
“We will have a national conference in Sunyani before the end of July where we intend to invite academics, the church, the Muslim community, teachers, educationists to come,” he said.
The minister indicated how he supported the Minister for Interior and the Narcotics Control institutions to deal with the drug menace in schools just last week.
Together with the GES, the minister the ministry was implementing a number of measures to strengthen discipline at the pre-education level. “Namely, we are introducing behavioural standards guide for learners, revised teachers’ code of conduct, and we have drafted a national safe school policy,” he said.
