Acts of vandalism by senior high school students over the seizure and destruction of their mobile phones appears to be a common occurrence these days. Barely seven months ago – on October 31, 2018, to be precise – the Nkwanta SHS in the Volta had to be closed down when the students went on the rampage following the seizure and destruction of their mobile phones by their teachers; but that punitive action did not deter their colleagues of Tumu Secondary School in the Sissala East Municipality of the Upper West Region, from putting up a similar behaviour last Thursday evening leading to the indefinite closure of their school.
According to reports, students started the protest by cutting off electricity to the school at about 11:30 pm and later ransacked teachers bungalows and other properties of the school. Even though the extent of the damage is yet to be assessed, it is expected to run into thousands of Ghana Cedis, according to the Upper West Regional Director of Education, Evans Kpebah.
Final year students, currently writing the West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE) are expected to report every morning to write the exams, which is scheduled to end by June 4 while some 23 students, who were rounded up by the police during the incident, will assist the police in their investigations.
Fact is that the Ghana Education Service (GES) has presently outlawed the use of mobile phones by students in second cycle institutions because it believes that mobile phones contribute to gross indiscipline and its associated consequences of poor academic performance.
It is also believed the use of mobile phones by students can easily get them distracted by it. Instead of focussing on useful academic activities, students and will instead spend a lot of their time on the internet, engaging in unproductive activities and on social media chatting with friends online deep into the night without realising the passage of time. That will consequently lead to fatigue, stress and its concomitant problem of attention in class. The internet is inundated with a lot of inappropriate websites which contain pornography that is a powerful propaganda tool capable of destroying every facet of students’ life.
To this end, some educationists, including teacher unions, such as the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT) and National Association of Graduate Teachers (NAGRAT), are of the view that, an attempt to lift the ban on the use of mobile phone among students in second cycle institutions will exacerbate the already existing problems of violent and sexual immoralities among students.
The Finder, therefore, finds it untenable that students not only broke the rules but also engaged in pre-meditated criminal acts of cutting off electricity and water supply to the school before engaging in the wanton destruction of some of the bungalows of the teachers. This is very reprehensible and we urge the police to get to the bottom of the matter and make the culprits face the full rigors of the law.
We are fully aware studies are being conducted into the advantages of learning and teaching with mobile phones in secondary schools in the country. Indeed, some stakeholders, including teachers and parents, are of the view that the use of mobile phones would instead enable students to complement traditional classroom learning with online learning or e-learning by reading additional instructional materials from the internet since most of the schools do not have reliable and stable internet access in their libraries and computer laboratories.
But until the green light is given, students have no option than to comply with the GES regulations or face the consequences. There is no ambiguity about that, right?