Editorial by Ghanaian Times: Displaced children deserve to go back to school

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) sets out children’s rights and how governments should work together to make them available to all children.

Under the terms of the convention, governments are required to meet children’s ba­sic needs and help them reach their full potential.

Central to this is the ac­knowledgment that every child has basic fundamental rights.

These include the right to life, survival, and development, protection from violence, abuse, or neglect, and an education that enables children to fulfill their potential.

The rest are, raised by, or have a relationship with, their parents and express their opinions and be listened to.

In 1959, the UN General Assembly adopted the decla­ration which generally defines children’s rights to education, health care, shelter, and good nutrition and to be protected from abuse and harm.

In Ghana, there are provi­sions in the 1992 Constitution that spells out the rights of the child. They are non-discrim­ination; maintenance of the child; right to life, survival, and development.

Others are respect for the views of the child; right to name and nationality, freedom of expression, thought, conscience, and religion among others.

It is on the basis of the international declarations and provisions of the 1992 Constitution that the Ghana­ian Times would like to draw attention to the plight of the children displaced following the spillage of the Akosombo and the Kpong dams by the Volta River Authority (VRA).

As reported by Child Right International (CRI), a total of 19,743 schoolchildren in the Eastern, Volta, and Greater Accra Regions have been affected by the spillage from 71 schools comprising Kindergarten, Primary, and Junior High Schools.

According to CRI, a study it conducted revealed that more than 9,000 of school children could not retrieve their educational materials, including uniforms, bags, books, shoes, and textbooks from the floods.

At a press conference in Ac­cra on Tuesday, the Executive Director of CRI, Mr Bright Appiah, described the situation as unbearable and called on the Ghana Education Service to develop and implement an Education Recovery Plan.

This, he said, would help expedite the reintegration of affected children into school to enable them to catch up with teaching and learning activities.

He said the study was con­ducted by the organisation to assess the impact of the spill­age, especially in the education and health of children.

According to Mr Appiah, it would take more than three months for the state to offi­cially return the children back to school hence the need to start addressing the problem faster.

Indeed, if the assessment made by CRI is anything to go by, then we have to conclude that the right of the children have been violated and needs to be restored hurriedly.

We add our voice to the call by CRI on the GES to go to the aid of the children whose future is threatened by the unfortunate floods occasioned by the spillage of the dam.

What is needed now is a quick response to the needs of emotionally traumatised children so that they can return to school as soon as possible.

We are aware the government alone cannot shoulder this burden so we appeal to benevolent individuals and organisations to go to the aid of the children by donating school kits to support their return to school.

This, we must do, bearing in mind that the rights of the children have been violated, and without the collective support of all their future may be jeopardised.