Speaking on Citi TV, the GES’ Director of the Guidance and Counselling Unit, Ivy Kumi, said teachers can only use the approved alternative sanctions provided by the GES to discipline pupils.
She said going contrary to the stipulated alternative sanctions amounts to abuse, adding that parents are free to take on teachers who fail to heed to the GES’ directives.
“…since caning and all other corporal punishments are forms of abuse, parents can take it up. If a teacher beats a child and he or she suffers marks on the body, it is an abuse. The student has been battered and the parent can decide to report to the police,” Madam Ivy Kumi said.
The GES has taken a strong stance against canning in schools, describing the act as a “corporal punishment”.
In a recent statement signed by its Deputy Director General, Anthony Boateng, the GES ordered teachers in primary and secondary schools to immediately adopt a new disciplinary toolkit.
The statement said, rather than cane students, teachers must find alternate sanctions as measures for correcting them.
The GES added that “corporal punishment inflicts on children, this approach also causes significant emotional damage. Some of the lasting effects of this method of disciplining school children include physical scars, emotional scars (trauma, fear, timidity etc.) and violent behaviour.”
Ivy Kumi believes corporal punishment is one of the causes of high school dropout in the country.
In her view, such punishments need to be completely banned because they have done no good in the past years.
“Corporal punishment has physical, psychological and emotional disadvantages for the child. It has kept a number of our students out of school. So in order to keep our students in school, we needed to completely ban corporal punishment in school because of its negative effects. It is not doing us any good. We need to find other ways of disciplining the Ghanaian Child because it does not encourage them to be in school,” she added.
Eyewitness? Submit your stories now via social or:
Email: eyewitness@pulse.com.gh
