GES directed to end child labour in schools

The Ministry of Education has directed the Ghana Education Service (GES) to put in place measures to end all forms of child labour in schools.

The directive was issued by Rev. Ntim Fordjour, Deputy Minister of Education, when he led a team of government delegation to commiserate with families of the nine students who got drowned in the Oti River while returning from working on the farm of their headmaster.

Last Friday, around 3 pm, 32 school children who were returning from the farm of the headmaster of the St. Charles JHS, at Saboba, got drowned when two of the boats carrying them capsized.

Out of the 31 children, 22 of them were able to swim across the river while the remaining nine got drowned.

This led to the arrest of the headmaster, Mr Charles Chinji, who has since been remanded into police custody pending further investigation and prosecution. The Tamale Circuit court has charged him for murder.

Don’t plead

Rev Ntim Fordjour said President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and the entire Ghanaian populace were saddened by the news of the death of the nine.

He assured the families and the people of Saboba of government’s readiness to ensure that the practice of teachers engaging pupils on their farms would be stopped.

He urged people in leadership positions to desist from pleading for teachers caught indulging in such nefarious acts, and instead allow the laws to deal with them.

The Deputy Minister said the government was ready to support the families of the deceased students in bearing their loss, hence the deployment of the clinical a psychologist and counsellors into the community to help the pupils, teachers and families of the dead.

He was upbeat that the right measures would be put in place to curb all forms of abuses against pupils and students at all levels of education in the country.

The Director-General of GES, Prof. Kwasi Opoku Amankwa, said the Service had since interdicted the headmaster, who has been remanded by a court, in accordance with the Code of Conduct of the Service.

He warned teachers to desist from using pupils for any authorised work.

Courtesy call

The delegation also paid a courtesy call on the paramount chief of Saboba, Uchabobor Bawon Mateer Sakojim, and his elders at his palace, after which they joined worshipers at the local Catholic Church for a special thanksgiving service held for the nine departed children.

They later met the bereaved families at the Saboba District Assembly, and presented GHC2, 000 to each family.

Prof Kwasi Opoku Amankwa pledged to collaborate with the traditional leaders to ensure sanity, and help improve teaching and learning in schools in the area.

He also pledged to ensure that supervision in all schools across the country is intensified to control any form of abuse of children irrespective of where they are located in the country.

The paramount chief was full of praise for the government for the support to the traditional authorities and the believed families.

He expressed the traditional authorities’ preparedness to put in place the right measures to bring sanity into schools in the area to curb the issue of headmasters and other teachers sending school children to farm during instructional hours.

He appealed to government, as a matter of urgency, to overhaul the Saboba District Education Directorate to help improve the educational outcomes in the area.