Hajia Hamdatu Ibrahim
Hajia Hamdatu Ibrahim the Chairperson of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) has put flogging in Islamic schools otherwise called Makaranta in the Zongos, on the spotlight.
Speaking to the DAILY GUIDE yesterday, she said the system of flogging students of the schools which Muslim boys and girls attended mostly during weekends was an age-old phenomenon.
“Today, times have changed and the flogging must cease immediately because it is crude and sometimes even senseless,” she said.
Recently she recalled how two of her mature daughters turned up for one of such school at Accra New Town, and because they were late, according to the male teacher, they must be flogged.
“Imagine a male teacher insisting on flogging a girl who has completed a post-secondary school institution. Obviously this is not something which she would tolerate for her age and education,” she said.
One of the girls, she said, was asthmatic for which reason such stressful bouts at the hands of an overzealous male Islamic school teacher was unhelpful and even dangerous.
“Not even the pleas from a female teacher made him change his decision to flog the girls. Eventually the two girls abandoned their Islamic education at the school,” she recalled.
The CPP Chairperson said she bore a scar after sustaining a cut from the flogging of an Islamic school teacher when she was young. “That was what ended my schooling in an Islamic school,” she said, adding that “I am not saying that kids when they are unruly should not be punished. Flogging however should not be administered.”
She called for reforms in the approach to teaching in such schools where moral education is also taught to students.
“The environment in such schools must be attractive to the students. The picture of a teacher or malam flogging students does not belong to a modern setting and must be stopped forthwith,” she said, adding that there are optional ways of keeping students in line. “Flogging or inflicting physical injuries is certainly not one of them. I hope the relevant authorities such as the Islamic Education Unit would take up this matter for remedial actions,” she said.
By A.R. Gomda