GES Justifies Punishment For SHS Students Who Insulted Prez

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has justified why the final year students who disrespected the President rightly deserved the punishment meted out to them.

Some students of the Tweneboah Koduah, Juaben Senior High Schools and Sekondi College have been dismissed and barred from writing their WASSCE examinations after recording videos of themselves casting diatribes at President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and others vandalizing their school propeties.

The students engaged in these acts because they couldn't write their Integrated Science examination and blamed the President for their failure.

This is because they were given past questions to serve as a guide for them to write their exams but they rather relied on the past questions and were left with disappointment when the questions didn't appear in the final exams.

The GES also surcharged the students who destroyed the school properties and there are some that their case has been referred to the Police for further investigation and sanctions.

Making his submissions on Peace FM's ''Kokrokoo'', the Director-General of GES, Prof. Kwesi Opoku Amankwa disclosed that the students of Tweneboah Koduah and Juaben SHSs had ''bribed'' some of their invigilators ahead of the exams but the authorities got a wind of it and changed the teachers who were supposed to invigilate them.

On the part of one student named Nicholas Cobbinah of Sekondi College, Prof. Opoku Amankwa narrated how obstinate the student is, saying his action (insulting the President) was the third time of insubordination.

He revealed, on two occasions, he (Nicholas Cobbinah) had carried out an assault on some students in his school and his case was reported to the Police.

''Before they went home around 25th February, he beat a Form 2 student for the child to lose six set of teeth. The case was filed at the Police and the offender was prepared for court but the offender's parents settled the issue with the victim's family. They fixed the teeth for the school child. What is even more painful is, when you read the report, the child's gum is said to have been badly impacted, thereby making it difficult for the teeth to be fixed properly...He also headbutted another school child and blood started oozing from the victim's face'', he stated.

The GES Director noted it is in view of all these and other similar incidents that informed the decision by the education authority to sanction the students accordingly.

He however added that the GES has taken notice of the President's plead for leniency but was glad that the President didn't direct that they cancel the punitive measures other than to let the students write their exams.

According to him, the students can partake in the final examinations but are not allowed to write their papers in their schools.

He directed them to go and write in WAEC designated offices.

He also stressed that the other punishments like payment for full cost of the damaged school properties are still in effect.