The Coalition of Concerned Teachers is urging the Ghana Education Service (GES) not to rescind its decision for the 13 dismissed students sitting for the 2020 West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) to be charged for the damages caused in their schools.
The teachers say, although the decision to dismiss the students was rescinded following the intervention of President Akufo-Addo, the students must be surcharged.
The GES in a statement on August 7 indicated that students in schools where destruction of school properties occurred during the ongoing WASSCE exams will be surcharged for the full cost of damages.
The students’ sanctions by the Ghana Education Service (GES) followed reports of violent protests and in some cases, physical assault on examination officials over strict enforcement of anti-cheating rules.
The President of the Coalition of Concerned Teachers, King Ali Awudu told Citi News that the directive to surcharge the students must be in force despite the clemency to have them accepted back in school to complete their exams.
“I think that if we will even agree to allow them to continue writing their exams, no form of clemency should be accepted for them not to pay for the properties that they have destroyed. When these students leave the school compound and their testimonials and other things are being given to them, the school authorities should not hide anything. What the students did should be written in their records”.
Meanwhile, the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) says the GES must consider other forms of discipline that would reform the students rather than dismissing them.
GNAT said students must never be deprived as education as a form of punishment as it may only make them liabilities rather than assets to themselves an society.
“In as much as you want to discipline children, we should not take education away from them. That is why the children’s act itself indicates that the in the best interest of the child must be protected at all times. In correcting the child, the best interest is education because at the end of the day, the child must be beneficial to himself, society, family and the large world. If we deny a child access to education as a form of punishment, then we are telling them that child labour is the option now,” he said.
