The President of the National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), Angel Carbonu, has expressed concerns over the increasing unruliness among students within Ghana's school environment.
This is on the back of the death of 18-year-old, Edward Borketey Sackey, a form three student of O'Reilly Senior High School who was tragically stabbed to death by a colleague over an argument on whose father is wealthier.
Speaking on Eyewitness News on Tuesday, September 3, Carbonu criticised what he described as a misplaced emphasis on student rights at the expense of discipline in schools.
He pointed out that external influences, including international NGOs advocating for students' rights, have led to a weakening of rules and regulations that are essential for maintaining order. "A certain group of people who, I don't know, let me not use any expression that will create any problem, but some people come and talk about human rights.
As if the teacher does not know what human rights are.
Sometimes when we go and get some financial support from some international NGO, then we forget that we need to establish rules and regulations that are in tune to the realities of our environment; don't do this, don't do that.
When you talk to the students like that, you are creating psychological injury to the students. "As if to create the impression that whenever the students do wrong, we should kiss them pat them on the back and tell them that they can continue.
So, the school environment continues to become a place where students are beginning to become unruly and this is one of them.
Because why do you enter school premises as a candidate with a sharp object with the intention of doing what?" he questioned.
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