Oguaa parents unhappy about use of phones in schools

Cape Coast, Aug. 10, GNA- Many parents in Cape Coast, on Wednesday, also expressed concern about the use of mobile phones in school by some senior secondary school students, and have asked the Ghana Education Service to come out with a regulation against the practice.

They contended that apart from disrupting classes, some unscrupulous students could also use the phones to contact their colleagues in other schools to indulge in criminal activities. The parents expressed these concerns, when the GNA interviewed them to ascertain their views about the issue, which had become a concern to some school heads.

A parent, Mr Robert Donkor, taxi driver said, some parents gave too much money and other material things to their wards and that could affect their children in future.

When the GNA followed up to the Adisadel College, the headmaster, Mr. Herbert Graham, repeated appeals to parents not to give mobile phones to their wards in senior secondary schools, because the phones disrupt classes.

Mr Graham, condemned the practice and said the practice used to be very rife in his school, but it has reduced because of their regular seizure, but that this measure has not been altogether successful, since there are some recalcitrant students who "still hide and use them." According to him, although it had been made clear to parents that providing their wards with such phones was prohibited, some of them are "still helping their wards to break school rules, by providing them with the phones."

He said even in cases where parents themselves do not actually provide the phones, some of them give their wards money in excess, which enables them to buy the phones.

Mr. Graham said others who cannot afford them are sometimes forced to steal them, because their friends are using such phones, and stressed that his administration would continue to warn against this practice and urged parents not to "pamper their children."

At Holy Child School, one of the tutors who pleaded anonymity, said the school does not have that problem, because it has rigidly enforced regulations against the use of the phones, and said so far, none of the girls had broken that rule.

Mr. Dan Ntiakoh-Ayipah, a tutor at the Academy of Christ the King, also said the students are not allowed to use mobile phones and therefore, the school does also not have that problem.