Robert Seppey
Last year to date, there have been many sex scandals instructively involving teachers and their teenage students – one of them being the infamous ‘Stool Sex Headmaster.’
These stories have of course overshadowed others for front page placement in newspapers.
The matter of the stool top sex with a headmaster at the centre of it is over, not so however the conversation it has generated.
Following the cracking of the whip by the regulator, the Ghana Education Service (GES) on the defaulting headmaster, questions are being posed about what should be done to obviate the recurrences of the episode and whether or not the sheer dismissal is enough as a sanction.
Of course, many of the inappropriate sexual encounters with students by headmasters and teachers are almost becoming a norm in some schools especially in the hinterland. In such places, such stories are considered a taboo and therefore hushed by opinion leaders.
It is important that incidences of inappropriate sexual conduct perpetrated by teachers are stemmed by all means possible. The harshest measure of dismissal of culprits should be coupled with a court action; this way the deterrent needed would be achieved.
There is no justification for a person into whose care a child is put to turn around and engage in sexual intercourse with her.
It is for this reason that we welcome the action of the GES and demand to see more such actions. We should like to re-echo our earlier demand that school heads under whose watch such immoral acts take place should also be sanctioned because they slept on their jobs.
As a nation, there is need to rethink our approach to sex education; it should be a teacher and parent collaboration. It is only when the girl child understands her physiology properly and the consequences of sexual engagements would she be in a better position to ward off unhealthy overtures from bad adults.
In most cases, such overtures because they originate from a teacher or even headmaster, persons held in awe, resistance is minimal or even absent yet with devastating consequences.
In Kenya, the issue of sex education, whether it be taught jointly by parents and teachers, is a subject being discussed in some circles though traditional beliefs are hindering progress in this direction.
It is our position that when a girl is sufficiently educated about this subject, she would be primed with the will power and knowledge to say a ‘no’ to sexual overtures by teachers and other irresponsible persons in society.
In Ghana, the subject has ever been discussed albeit moderately. The discussion did not last and fizzled out because this is a country where most people would rather the status quo remains. The cost of this though is the incidents of adolescents being abused by randy adults who lie to them about the safety of the acts.
For now until we reach this ideal destination of open sex education for our girls, the authorities must crack the whip on teachers and others with uncontrollable libidos.