The Wesley College ‘bombing’ - Are we losing

We seem to be living in very perilous times if aspiring trainers and educators are able to take the law into their own hands and splash faeces in their classrooms, just because they are displeased.

We find the reported action of some students of the Wesley College of Education in Kumasi very unfortunate if, indeed, they poured faeces in 10 classrooms to register their displeasure with a new policy that is being implemented.

In the past few days, many colleges of education had experienced some disturbances resulting from the introduction of an examination policy that allows a student just one chance to rewrite a referred or failed paper or be sacked.

Last week, authorities of the Mampong Technical College of Education closed down the school, while there was a demonstration at the Akrokeri College of Education last Monday due to students’ displeasure with the same policy.

The students of the colleges argue that the policy was not communicated to them before its implementation, resulting in some of them not getting the chance afforded by the new system to rewrite the failed papers during the vacation, as should have been the case.

If the new policy is intended to improve standards in the institutions, it is a welcome move. However, we wonder why its implementation has to be rushed, as events following it indicate.

We are not by this holding brief for the students or endorsing the disturbances in our colleges of education, especially the smearing of faeces at the Wesley College of Education.

In fact, the Daily Graphic is appalled by the action of the faceless students and we wonder what the perpetrators will teach our children when they complete their education. We find it unbecoming of adults who are receiving training to impart knowledge to people in their formative years.

By their action, they have only wasted precious teaching time and resources that could have been used for something better than buying soap and using treated water to clean the 10 classrooms.

 In any case, it is not the tutors who suffered from the action but the students themselves.

We urge the school authorities to do all within their means to bring the perpetrators to book. They must be made to face the music for displaying such an animalistic character unbecoming of character shapers, mentors and role models.

We believe that they have shown that they are unfit to hold the tag of teachers and moulder of character if they could put up such barbaric behaviour, instead of resorting to the laid-down rules for seeking redress.