We Have Spoilt Our Children; Na Who Cause Am?

The New Publisher, in this editorial, would dare not pretend indiscipline among students, especially in second cycle schools in Ghana, is a new thing but the scary dimensions it has grown into in recent times is testament that we, as a society have spoilt and continue to spoil our own children – the expected future leaders.

What has been going on in Ghana’s second cycle schools within the last months seem to be more of criminal acts than acts of indiscipline. The perpetrators of these acts are fast becoming uniform-wearing criminals on the loose and we are all at risk as a society.

For instance, the murder of an 18-year-old final-year student of O’Reilly Senior High School in Accra, by a colleague student in school during school hours cannot be categorized as an act of indiscipline rather than an act of crime.

It has become common for a group of uniformed students to attack and beat to pulp another student wearing the uniform of a different school in the full glare of the public. This again, cannot be reduced to student indiscipline; these are acts of violent assault. These are criminal acts.

It is strange that students have the courage to use their smart phones to make video recordings of the crimes they commit and to share same on social media these days. How the phones even got to the boarding houses and dormitories is another mystery because students are not permitted to have mobile phones on campus.

School authorities are very much aware of the presence of the mobile phones but in many instances cannot collect them from the students out of fear and self preservation.

It is on record in this country that a teacher who dared to seize the phones of students was attacked by the students and violently beaten to his death. Yes he was killed! Sekyi Asare-Menako was the name and he died at the Korle Bu Teaching Hospital from injuries he suffered from the assaults.

Within the last two months, some six or more secondary schools have been compelled to temporarily shut down because students there were rioting and destroying property. Some were committing acts of arson; some were beating up school authorities. Again, these are criminal acts that transcend mere acts of indiscipline.

A student was recently captured on video using a machete to flog a junior student in a boarding school. That is the new scary level bullying has reached in secondary schools

There have been calls for corporal punishment or canning to be returned to secondary schools. Well, that may not be the entire solution because in our perspective, the situation goes beyond the biblical “Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you punish them with the rod, they will not die. Punish them with the rod and save them from death”, in Proverbs 23:13-14.

We as a society have spoilt the children through our own actions and inactions: they are doing the exact things they have seen parents and leaders do to each other and they are saying the exact things they have seen parents and leaders say to each other.

We, as parents, cannot escape blame when we criminally buy examination questions for our children so they can pass.

We, as parents, cannot escape blame when we unethically pay bribes for our wards to be placed in certain category of schools their grades cannot get for them.

We, as parents, cannot escape blame when in the presence of our children we openly insult our political leaders with all manner of invectives.

How can we escape blame when we talk about teachers and school authorities with scorn and disdain in the presence of our children? We have failed to discipline our children and have prevented teachers from helping out.

We have spoilt our children.