MP's call for adequate protection of school lands

Accra, June 27, GNA - Members of Parliament on Tuesday underscored the need for adequate security and protection of school lands by providing fence walls around schools.

This followed a statement by the NPP Member for Afigya Sekyere East, Mr David Henneric Yeboah that schools that did not have fence walls exposed students and tutors to risk and gave access to outsiders to enter the school to steal or have illicit relationships with female students.

Mr Yeboah stated further that schools without fence walls provided avenues for the smoking of Indian hemp, drunkenness and other anti-social activities, which went in no small way to destroy the lives and the future of students.

According to Mr Yeboah, a foetus was discovered at a place between a girls' dormitory and a dining hall in a secondary school. A pregnancy test carried out on 165 girls in SSS 3 of the school established that six female students were pregnant.

He also told the House of another incident in one of the secondary schools on the Kwahu Ridge, in which a mad man pursued some students. Mr Yeboah pointed out the need to adopt preventive measures to save the future of the nation's young boys and girls, stating, "we should not by our omissions and failures expose them to the bad side of society". "It should be made obligatory that in future any school being built should have a fence wall as an essential part of the building plan which must be undertaken at all costs," Mr Yeboah said. Members' contributions endorsed the need for adequate security to go beyond the provision of fence walls, to intensifying moral education and providing buffer zones between the Schools and the residential areas to ensure the security of the schools, the students and teachers.