President Nana Akufo-Addo
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has directed the Education Minister to engage the Ghana Education Service (GES) to reconsider the ban on 14 West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) candidates from continuing their final examinations.
The GES cracked the whip on the students for committing various acts of indiscipline recently.
A statement from the service banned all 14 candidates in different senior high schools (SHSs) across the country for their various undisciplined behaviours, including destruction of properties and insubordination.
This was after some of the students had vandalized school properties after writing their first paper in Integrated Science, claiming the paper was difficult.
Besides, others took to social media to insult even the President and his Free SHS education policy which gave most of them the opportunity to school for free, including the final examination fees.
A statement from the Presidency issued yesterday by the Director of Communications, Eugene Arhin, said, “The President of the Republic, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, has directed the Minister for Education, Hon. Matthew Opoku Prempeh, to engage the Ghana Education Service (GES) to reconsider its decision to ban some fourteen (14) dismissed final year senior high school students from taking the ongoing West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).”
“Even though the acts of indiscipline undertaken by these students are intolerable, acts which have led to their subsequent dismissal from school, President Akufo-Addo is of the firm view that dismissal alone is enough punishment, and will serve as enough deterrent against future acts of indiscipline,” it said.
“The President believes that everyone deserves a second chance in life, and is, thus, hopeful that the students will be allowed by the GES to take their final examinations as scheduled,” the statement added.
He, however, noted that “all other punishment imposed by the relevant authorities should remain in place.”
By Charles Takyi-Boadu, Presidential Correspondent