The Minority in Parliament says punishment handed to some girls at Chiana SHS in the Upper East Region for insulting Ghana’s president, Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo, is “harsh and retrogressive”.
Eight female students of the school whose dismissal by the Ghana Education Service (GES) in November last year became public following media reports on Thursday, were captured in a viral video using vulgar and unprintable words on the President.
They accused the president of bringing about economic hardship among others.
Though the Minority joined many who have condemned the conduct of the students, the statement signed by Peter Nortsu-Kotoe, the Ranking Member on Parliament’s Education Committee, calls the decision by the GES a drawback.
“In this age and time when there is increased advocacy and renewed focus on increasing access to education any decision that takes a child away from the classroom can only be seen as an absolute drawback to this renewed focus and objective,” the Minority argued.
The Minority also appealed to President Akufo-Addo to use his good offices to pardon the students as he did in 2020 when a group of some students misconducted themselves towards him.
The statement posited that “the eight students like every other Ghanaian child deserve to be in school in line with Article 25 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana and also Goal (4) of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals”.
The Minority is therefore calling on GES to reconsider its decision.
“It is in view of this, that we wish to call on the Ghana Education Service to review its decision and to ensure that the education of the victims is not truncated in this manner.
“We are also by this statement, urging the GES to proffer an alternative but corrective punishment to the eight students.
“This we believe would be in the best interest of our collective goal to ensuring that every Ghanaian child has access to formal education.”
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