Indiscipline in schools – A call to action

Anyone who has passed through Secondary School which we now call Senior High School or SHS, can have one story or another to tell about students and indiscipline. The group of people who are in second­ary schools are what we refer to as teenagers.

One of the characteristics of this group is youthful exuberance. They have the tendency to act in ways that are irrational. At that age, the way you view the world is so funny and you think you are smarter than the elderly, especially your parents.

However, years later when you consider the things you did while in school, you begin to wonder whether you were being influenced by some evil spirits. Some of the things when you recall them, are so senseless and shameful that you wish it never hap­pened and that if you had the power to erase past actions, you definitely would have completely erased.

Things that are currently happening in our secondary schools, are really issues that are very alarming. In our days at SHS, students used to sneak into town without exeat, seniors bullying juniors and demanding food items from them, stealing of poultry and cooking them in the dormitories etc.

There was the occasional stealing of school property that became a big issue like the time a classmate of mine and a senior got caught stealing school foam mattresses and were dis­missed. Smoking of wee was also an­other issue of indiscipline that school authorities had to grapple with.

I recall a funny incident that a stu­dent’s parents were summoned to the school because he was caught smoking wee. The mother was complaining after the meeting with the school authorities.

She said in Fante “Kweku Abegya afra Kete yi, wose onom wee a, anka orembo dam a? Cigarette mpo onnom bi da.” In other words “This small boy Kweku Abegya, you claim he smokes wee. If it were true, would he not have gone crazy?

Even cigarette, he has never smoked one.” If only she knew the truth, that her innocent looking son, was indeed a wee smoker due to the bad influence of some seniors.

A few days ago, it was reported in the news that some students have organised to burn the school’s library as a result of punishment meted out to them as part of disciplinary mea­sures. Out of anger, they organised themselves and decided to burn the school library.

This brazen attack on school prop­erty is clearly indiscipline on steroids and must be worrying to any normal person. There have been stories of students attacking their teachers, students mobilising to take revenge against town folks, students mobilis­ing to attack other schools etc. and if these behaviours are not curtailed, serious injuries and even fatalities are bound to occur.

Students, both in the secondary and tertiary, are now visiting mayhem on fellow students. There are reported incidents of stabbing and students en­gaging in occultism which is becoming very alarming.

There are reports of students going on rampage because teachers did not allow them to cheat during examina­tions and you ask yourself, what is the future going to look like for our na­tion? Opinion leaders, school author­ities, civil society, the clergy and all other stakeholders are to get involved to find ways of addressing this ugly phenomenon spreading across our various Senior High Schools.

The quicker we act, the better it will be for all of us, and the better future we seek to establish for our nation. God bless.

NB: ‘CHANGE KOTOKA INTERNA­TIONAL AIRPORT TO KOFI BAAKO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT’

BY Laud Kissi-Mensah