Our schools don’t need bullies

The school environment ideally needs to be congenial enough to support teaching and learning.

Students and their teachers should be able to go about their daily activities without any fear of danger or hindrance.

Unfortunately, the environment in senior high schools is gradually becoming unsafe and hostile to the weak and vulnerable. 

It is important to acknowledge that education is a leveller which allows children of different backgrounds to co-habit peacefully.

It is against this backdrop that the Daily Graphic is of the conviction that the schools’ environment should be jealously protected and guided against bullies, who should have no place in our schools.

In July 2023, a viral video of a student strangling a mate at the Mfantsipim SHS attracted widespread condemnation, resulting in the school taking drastic measures to prevent such an occurrence.

Then in September 2024, at O'Reilly SHS, a final-year student stabbed a classmate to death.

Additionally, in the last quarter of 2024, Ishmael Famous, a teacher at the Asuoso Senior High School at Offinso in the Ashanti Region, was stabbed in the left eye by a student, who was caught loitering instead of being in the classroom at the time.

Just last week, there was another viral video of a student in Accra Academy SHS using the blade of a machete to violently beat some junior schoolmates.

The Daily Graphic is aware that these incidents usually occur in our senior high schools without the knowledge of the authorities.

Our position has been that bullies do not have a place in our school environment and such acts must not be tolerated.

Such barbaric acts by some of the students only poison the school environment and may account for some students refusing to continue their secondary education.

We condemn these acts of violence and indiscipline in the strongest possible terms.

It is a shame that most of the culprits have been final-year students, who, instead of directing their energies on their books, rather subject helpless juniors to torture. But strangely, this time the culprit is reported to be a junior student, a mate to the victims.

Authorities of our second cycle institutions must be firm in their dealings with such misguided students who take delight in bullying others.

Though it is said that all the students involved are day students, including the victims, we think the senior housemasters and housemasters in the schools, in particular, must step up their supervisory role, especially in the dormitories where most of these bullying acts take place.

When students are left to engage in acts of indiscipline without punishment, it emboldens them to believe that such behaviour is acceptable.

Even as we call on school authorities to deal with the issue, the Daily Graphic believes that parents have a part to play in the proper upbringing of their children. Parents must constantly engage the housemasters and housemistresses of their children to be abreast of their performance and behaviour

The Daily Graphic sees the education review conference slated for mid-February as an opportune time for participants to include the promotion of discipline in schools and the role of the teacher in instilling discipline to help address the growing canker in our senior high schools.

Discipline in senior high school has deteriorated to the level that requires drastic measures to reverse.

This, of course, is fuelled by the policy of the Ghana Education Service (GES) to bar teachers from punishing students when they go wrong.

Teachers must be given the chance to correct students when they go wrong, but, of course, with love, and not watch the students do whatever they want in the name of a policy. Students would always be students and, so, if unchecked, would do the unthinkable in the name of freedom.

It is our collective responsibility as parents, teachers and guardians to ensure that our children, students and wards are trained in the ways of discipline and respect.

Our school environment must be conducive to teaching and learning and should be welcoming for the weak, vulnerable; the poor and the rich.