One of the suspect, Emmanuel Frimpong
The state of discipline in Senior High Schools across the country is anything but acceptable.
The fatal stabbing of the late Sam’una Larhan by his colleague at the Konongo Odumase Senior High School in the Ashanti Region evidences this appalling state of discipline in our schools.
Even before this incident reports about students threatening teachers and in some instances actually carrying out such threats have found space in the media.
When SHS become breeding grounds for indiscipline then we have cause to fret about the situation and demand we rethink the subject in a national conversation.
That a student can decide to use a sharp object as a weapon on his colleague leading to a fatality is heartbreaking.
It can only be imagined the state of melancholy in which the parents of the deceased are as we compose this commentary.
After laboring for the past years to educate their son to the senior high school stage and expecting him to proceed further they are mourning today because an unruly colleague stabbed him fatally.
The state of indiscipline in our schools has often been taken for granted. Indeed this appalling state is not restricted to SHSs. In some Junior High Schools, students smoke marijuana and engage in amorous affairs with their colleagues.
Some parents in some cases do not render the necessary support to the school authorities to mould the unruly students. Such parents often charge on teachers when disciplinary measures are instituted against their wards.
The moulding of children in our schools is a shared responsibility between the school authorities and parents. Unfortunately however, some parents have lost the war against indiscipline of their children. They look unconcerned as the children fend for themselves a situation making it impossible for them to exert their parental authorities at home.
With cybercrime assuming a new trend in the country such uncouth children are able to make monies from the many internet cafes across the country.
The social media effect is playing a major role in this despicable state of moral decadence among the youth in both JHSs and SHSs.
When a student decides to regard an American gangster or even a land guard as a role model such outcomes are inevitable.
The suspect killer in the incident under review is also known as Tupac. He is undoubtedly an admirer of the American rapper and social activist Tupac Amaru Shakur and therefore perhaps regarding him as a role model. The rapper was shot multiple times on September 7, 1996 in a drive-by shooting by an assassin in Las Vegas, Nevada and he died six days later. The main suspect his former friend, the notorious B.I.G. was also shot dead in a similar fashion six months later. These are the kind of stories which fascinate such students on the blind side of school authorities and parents.
Another student picked the alias, Demon. With such mindsets and accessibility to social media posts unhindered the kind of social morass these students are exhibiting should not surprise us.
If the education authorities do not come up with better measures to arrest the declining moral situation among students such stories would not leave the scene.