The Ghana Education Service (GES) has recommended disciplinary measures against teachers of Twene Amanfo Senior High Technical School in Techiman following allegations that they assaulted students in an incident captured in a viral video.
The measures include reprimanding the teachers and removing them from their roles as Masters on Duty, following an investigation by a committee set up by the school’s management.
Deputy Director-General in charge of Quality and Access at the GES, Dr Issahaque Munwaru, disclosed this in an interview on Joy FM’s Super Morning Show on Monday, November 2.
He said the teachers would also be referred for guidance and counselling, alongside the affected students, while the school would surcharge them for the medical expenses incurred in treating the students.
“The teachers would have to be reprimanded, and they are also to be taken off their positions,” he said, explaining that they would no longer be assigned duties as Masters on Duty.
Dr Munwaru said preliminary findings indicated that the teachers allegedly assaulted the students after discovering that some of them were bullying their colleagues and extorting money from them.
He said the students were reportedly using the metallic parts of their belts to lash colleagues who refused to pay the money demanded from them.
However, he said the alleged bullying did not justify the teachers’ actions, noting that the GES Code of Conduct prohibits staff from inflicting physical punishment on students.
“The law does not permit anything that will inflict pain on the child,” he said.
He cited Part Three, Section Eight, Subsection A of the GES Code of Conduct, which identifies such actions as professional misconduct.
The Code prohibits teachers from administering corporal punishment, subjecting students to painful body postures, threatening them with harm or assaulting them.
Dr Munwaru said the Service regularly educates teachers on the Code of Conduct through orientation programmes, professional learning communities and continuous professional development sessions.
He warned that teachers who engage in similar misconduct in the future would face stiffer disciplinary sanctions.
“Any further misconduct along the same line will not receive the same level. It is going to be more punitive,” he said.
He added that the GES was cooperating with security agencies investigating the incident following the arrest of the teachers by the Bono East Regional Police.
The Service, he said, would provide information to support the police investigation while pursuing its own disciplinary processes.
