The Minister of Education, Haruna Iddrisu, has ignited a national debate on the possible reintroduction of corporal punishment in schools as part of efforts to tackle the growing wave of indiscipline threatening the country's education system.
“Should we reintroduce corporal punishment?", the minister quizzed and called on education stakeholders, parents, religious leaders and the media to critically examine whether the country needed to reconsider the policy as it searched for practical solutions to the worsening misconduct among learners.
Mr Iddrisu started the debate at a two-day National Conference on Stemming the Growing Indiscipline in Schools in Sunyani yesterday on the theme: "Stemming the Growing Indiscipline in Schools in an Emerging World".
The conference will examine emerging challenges, including cyberbullying, artificial intelligence-enabled cheating, drug abuse, gang activities, weakening teacher authority, parental responsibility and the need for a national framework for school discipline.
Criminal behaviour
Mr Iddrisu, however, stressed that regardless of the outcome of the national conversation, the government would not tolerate criminal behaviour in schools.
"Today, you have my authority and support, and that of the President, John Dramani Mahama and the State, to declare zero tolerance for criminal conduct in our schools,” he told the Ghana Education Service (GES), school heads and teachers.
He said acts of violence, drug abuse, possession of weapons and other criminal activities had no place in educational institutions because they undermined learning and endangered the safety of students and teachers.
"When criminal conduct finds space in our schools, the school environment becomes insecure, unsafe and no longer conducive to learning,” he said.
Mr Iddrisu described indiscipline as a national challenge that had gone beyond students to affect teachers, headmasters and even examination officials.
The minister cited incidents of students carrying firearms to school, vandalising surveillance cameras, openly selling narcotic substances on school campuses and assaulting teachers during examinations as evidence of a worrying trend.
"If our schools cannot form disciplined citizens, what manner of a nation are we preparing for tomorrow?" he asked.
Practical recommendations
Mr Iddrisu said the conference was intended to generate practical recommendations for the government to help reverse the decline in discipline and rebuild values among young people, adding that restoring discipline required a collective effort of parents, teachers, religious institutions, traditional leaders and the wider society.
Mr Iddrisu questioned what had become of Ghanaian values such as honesty, punctuality, hard work, responsibility and integrity, and challenged stakeholders to find innovative ways of reconnecting young people with those principles.
Empower teachers
The Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, Rt Rev. Professor Abraham Nana Opare Kwakye, said education without character only produced knowledgeable individuals but not responsible citizens.
He said discipline should not be viewed as punishment but as training that developed self-control, responsibility and integrity.
The Presbyterian Moderator attributed the growing indiscipline partly to social media influence, changing family structures, declining moral authority, substance abuse and the misuse of technology, stressing that schools alone could not solve the problem.
Rt Rev. Prof. Kwakye urged the Ministry of Education to empower teachers to enforce discipline fairly while strengthening guidance, counselling and mentorship systems.
Weak implementation
Presenting the state of discipline in schools, the Director-General of the Ghana Education Service, Prof. Ernest Kofi Davis, said although the country replaced corporal punishment with positive discipline in 2017 and subsequently developed several policy frameworks, implementation had remained weak.
He said cases of drug abuse, gang-related violence, cyber-enabled misconduct and attacks on teachers had increased, while teachers had not received adequate training and logistical support to effectively implement positive discipline.
Serious criminality
The keynote speaker, Prof. Fatuma Nyaguthii Chege of Kenyatta University, Kenya, said school indiscipline had escalated from minor misconduct to serious criminality, with some students ending up in the criminal justice system.
She cited a case in Kenya in which six students were standing trial for allegedly setting fire to a girls' dormitory, killing 16 students.
Prof. Chege called for stronger collaboration among parents, schools, communities and other stakeholders to "mend the cracks" through which many young people were falling.
Writer's email:
