Parents urged to visit children in school

Mr Lawrence Mwinkum Yirkyio, a former teacher of English Language and Literature-In-English at the Saint Hubert Seminary Senior High School in Kumasi has called on parents and guidance to inculcate the need to visit their children in school.

Speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Bolgatanga, Mr Yirkyio insisted that “The need for parents to make that conscious effort to visit their children in school is non-negotiable. Under no circumstance should a parent literally abandon the child in school.”

The former teacher expressed worry that even though all Senior High Schools created the opportunity and expected parents and guidance to visit their wards at least once every month, most parents hardly honoured the visiting hours to have physical contact with their children.

“When you have that physical contact with the child, there are certain things you can identify, which you would not have being able to uncover if you were speaking with the child on phone”.

“The child’s physical development and the physical demeanour of the child will give you a tip as to whether or not the child is happy in the school.” He said parents and guidance needed to play that parental role by occasionally checking up on their wards.

He also observed that most parents and guidance who wanted to keep contact with their children flouted school rules and gave mobile phones to their children to go to school.

Mr Yirkyio who is a budding writer, described the use of mobile phones by students in school as illegal because the current Ghana Education Service (GES) rules frowned on it.

He said it was sad that some parents found the SHS as a ground to dump their teenage children and handover the formation and values of their teenage children in the hands of external actors whose role largely was to teach children, and entreated parents to often pay unannounced visits to their children to know their wellbeing.

He further charged parents to endeavour to listen to their children and create the opportunity for them to express concerns, especially about attitudes of some teachers’ they entrust the care of their children in schools.

He observed that most parents, especially those with children in various SHS reposed so much confidence in some teachers and would often rubbish complaints from their children regarding the attitudes of those teachers.

He said some teachers were doing well, and noted that “you can never tell the intentions of a person by looking at his face. So you will find that most parents almost every day will speak to their children through a teacher, and they feel once I have spoken to my child through a teacher I trust, the child is in a good home.”

He reminded parents that most children in the SHSs were between the ages of 14 and 18 years, and said those were critical formative ages of children who were prone to influence and pressure from superiors.

“Once the superior wants the child to do something and he knows he has established that trust between him and the parents, he can easily get along with his intentions.”