GNAT calls for active involvement from all stakeholders in tackling indiscipline issues in schools

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GNAT calls for active involvement from all stakeholders in tackling indiscipline issues in schools

To address indiscipline in schools, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) has demanded an immediate stakeholder engagement in the development of measures.

For the benefit of everyone, it stated that heads of schools, parents, educators, and members of civil society groups must work together to address the issue of indiscipline. It claimed that this was a result of the behaviours that pupils nowadays are displaying.

“We need to have a stakeholders meeting and have this thing corrected. Otherwise, our future leaders would take us by surprise,” the General Secretary of GNAT, Thomas Tanko Musah, said to the Daily Graphic last Thursday.

His remarks come after a final-year student at Accra’s O’Reilly Senior High School was fatally stabbed.

Event

According to reports, the victim, a General Arts student, got into a fight with a classmate about who’s father was richer. This occurred subsequent to their completion of an assessment document. After the disagreement turned physical, Edward Borketey Sackey sustained multiple stabbings.

It was determined that the culprit was Godwin from the Visual Arts course. The cops have taken him into custody after making an arrest. Social media posts and videos showed fellow students frantically bringing Sackey to the hospital. Nevertheless, upon arriving, he was declared deceased.

Sending condolences

Mr. Musah offered the grieving family and the school his sympathies on behalf of the GNAT for the young person’s passing. “We are all aware of the unfortunate incident that has happened to us as a people and as a nation regarding the passing of a final-year student at the O’Reilly SHS.

“We want to use this opportunity to express our deepest condolences to the bereaved family,” he said.

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The GNAT General Secretary said anytime a teacher attempted to correct a student who had done something wrong, some parents came to schools to attack them. Sometimes, he said, the students organised themselves to attack a teacher who tried to discipline them.

Care

“As for the insults to teachers, it has now become a daily affair, where the student can say whatever he or she likes to the teacher.

“If care is not taken when you put any correctional measures in place or instil any correctional measures and the thing goes wrong, you would be taken on at the national level,” he said.

Mr Musah emphasised that the aspect of character moulding “is lost on us, and the earlier we take note or address these things together, the better for all of us.”
According to him, today, students came to school with weapons, including knives.

“Today, the confidence level of the student could be likened to those engaged in galamsey. The level at which those engaged in galamsey are doing it with impunity… is where we are now,” he said.

He said disciplining students had become difficult, if not impossible, because of the kind of repercussions that would come up.

“What we are saying as an organisation is that we need to come together as stakeholders because the confidence level of the students is the same as those doing the galamsey.

“Some of them can easily charge on you, they can attack you, they can insult you and do whatever they like in the schools and nobody is saying anything about it,” he said.

Mr Musah said the character being exhibited by some students was dangerous to society and that it was time something was done about it.

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