Double-track, excessive enrolment, to blame for indiscipline in secondary schools – Nortsu-Kotoe

The Ranking Member on the Education Committee of Parliament, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe has blamed the Double-track system and excessive enrolment due to the Free SHS Programme for the breakdown of discipline in Senior High Schools.

Concerns about indiscipline in Senior High Schools have intensified following the latest incident at Adisadel College where a student was seen being choked by a colleague and his head being hit against a metal bed in the dormitory.

Also on Tuesday, three students at Wa Technical Institute were arrested for attacking their Housemaster at his residence.

Commenting on the development in an interview with Starr FM, Peter Nortsu-Kotoe who is also the Member of Parliament for Akatsi North blamed the newly introduced government policies for the growing rowdiness in schools.

“…Right now, it is becoming difficult for school authorities including Housemasters and Guidance & Counselling instructors to know the students, especially in the double-track schools. Because the students come, eight weeks they are gone. They go and learn their textbooks and come back so the teachers are not able to know them very well.

“Then again, the large population in our secondary schools especially the Grade 1 schools as we call them. They have large numbers of students, 3500 – 5000 students, and I don’t know how those schools’ authorities can know all of them. So, until we make sure that children are all in school at the same time for a long period for the teachers to study them and know their characters it will be difficult for them to know. So, discipline is breaking down and we are calling on the government or GES especially to come out with new modalities so that children can be disciplined at the school level.”

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