General News of Friday, 16 November 2007
Source: GNA
... male teachers and female students
New Tafo (E/R), Nov. 16, GNA - The Deputy Director-General of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Miss Benedicta Naana Biney, has demanded of heads of cycle institutions to come down hard on acts of immorality on their campuses particularly reported incidents of male teachers engaging in sexual relations with female students.
The GES "shall not wink its eyes over such reckless attitudes and behaviours and non-adherence to our code of conduct more so when such behaviours have the likelihood of socializing the innocent and uninitiated ones into believing that it is an acceptable practice", she said.
Miss Biney said GES "expects school authorities to take drastic action in accord with the service's code of ethics against the deviants and miscreants" since such acts "do not augur well for learning and the attainment of high academic performance."
Addressing a durbar to round-off activities marking the 46th anniversary of the Ofori-Panin Secondary School at Kukurantumi near New Tafo, the Deputy Director-General reminded teachers that the service frowns on all sexual misconducts.
Describing the situation as "regrettable", Miss Biney urged heads of schools to be "vigilant so as to weed out such unacceptable behaviour and misfits who are likely to socialize the innocent and uninitiated ones."
Miss Biney commended OPAAS for being above the fray when it comes to disciplinary issues but asked them to remain vigilant in that regard. Speaking on the New Educational Reforms, Miss Biney said instead of being pessimistic about its success, Ghanaians should rather focus on what they can do collectively to ensure its success. She said to ensure the success of the Information and Communication Technology segment of the reforms the service was to provide a number of secondary schools with 40 desktop computers, a server, laptops computers and projectors among others.
The Headmaster of the school, Mr Kwaku Kyei-Brobbey, accepted Miss Biney's challenge since he was of the view that education without morality and discipline was baseless. He said the school was devoting much time in inculcating in their students moral values that would make them worthy ambassadors of the school.
The Adontehene of Akyem Abuakwa, Osabarima Kena Ampaw who chaired the function, said he was unhappy with the computer selection procedure for secondary schools.
He said the method had failed to take care of the interest of the local people and prayed for a revision of the policy.