Some students of the Annor Adjaye Senior High School (SHS) in the Jomoro Municipality of the Western Region are nursing the lacerations they suffered from the lashings they endured at the hands of the school authorities.
This clear case of a breach of the Ghana Education Service (GES)’s regulation, is a matter which prompted questions about why the authorities should embark on the forbidden tangent.
We doubt whether the GES has varied its order banning all forms of corporal punishments in schools across the country.
The subject has especially resonated negatively among members of some Muslim social media platforms. The students who were flogged cut across the Christian and Islamic faiths anyway, which has reduced the temperature of the subject. That is not to state that the authorities are off the hook.
One of the questions being asked is whether or not school authorities should compel students to attend religious programmes within their jurisdictions, failing which should attract corporal punishment.
It is amazing why some persons do not learn from past occurrences.
Last year, the headmaster of Jachie Pramso SHS was interdicted after he flogged a female student for helping her colleague and the subject, like the one under review, attracted comments across social media.
The GES might have to re-issue the circular banning corporal punishments since it appears some school authorities have forgotten about it. The circular should contain punishment which defaulters will attract.
In this day and age, where social media has the propensity to disseminate breaches within seconds, it is amazing why school authorities would risk their careers by breaching important regulations originating from the GES.
The parents of the students who have suffered the bruises could easily turn on the school authorities and what an avoidable confusion that could be.
Students, especially in boarding facilities, require special treatment from school authorities who represent their parents within the confines of the educational facilities.
When matters descend to such depths, with teachers upon the approval of headmasters, using canes to flog students and leaving cuts on their bodies, we have cause to worry.
What if in the course of administering the corporal punishment something untoward happens to the students? Of course, there would be confusion, an avoidable one.
School authorities should instill discipline in students not through corporal punishment which is not only crude, but outmoded, in a modern setting such as ours.
As it happened in the case of the Jachie Pramso SHS last year, the headmaster of Annor Adjaye SHS should be interdicted as the case is probed by a panel to be set up by the GES.
More deterring punishments should be prescribed for headmasters or school authorities who breach GES regulations such as the subject under review.