Vice President's campaign for discipline is for all

Accra, Nov. 24, GNA - Mr Andrews Awuni, An Aide in the Office of the President, on Thursday reiterated the need for discipline in the society, saying the Vice President's campaign against indiscipline was meant to draw attention to the problem for redress.

"The country stood a danger of total chaos because what was called law and order was not functioning in society today and that is why the Vice President's campaign was launched to help all Ghanaians to join in educating the public to fight against all forms of indiscipline. "The Vice President simply flagged an issue on moral cancer but since the launch of the campaign, the office had received a whole pile of letters questioning what the campaign was doing because there were all kinds of indiscipline going on in society of late," he said.

Mr Awuni, who is the Coordinator for the Campaign Against Indiscipline, was speaking at a two-day annual conference of Guidance and Counsellors Association aimed at finding a lasting solution to social vices in schools.

He said counsellors served as a core to the production of responsible citizens needed for development. He said guidance and counselling might not necessarily be the core business of the Ministry of Education and Sports and the Ghana Education Service, but it took very important aspects of what the ministry was doing.

"If the character of students was not guided, they would not have the basic qualification for human beings." He urged all to follow the rules, regulations and societal norms in order to behave more responsibly.

Mr Awuni said counsellors in the schools combined teaching with counselling and appealed to the Ministry of Education and GES to recognise their workload and equip the unit to enable it to play its role effectively.

He said counselling was needed in the early years of every child's development so that the child grew up, moulded with some level of responsibility.

Mr Kwame Ampofo Twumasi, Deputy Minister of Education and Sports, said a White Paper on the report of the Education Review Committee provided for the institution of measures to give a new lease of life to guidance and counselling in education institutions and communities. He said this lease of life included the expansion of University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast, in collaboration with Ghana Education Service to provide access to the training of guidance and counselling.

Mr Twumasi said the ministry would provide enough funding and logistic support for regional and district education directorates and that counselling units would be set up in all secondary schools and cluster schools at the basic level.

He said the GES would ensure that guidance and counselling was taken as a full-time job for professional counsellors and offered as separate courses in teacher training colleges.

Mrs Cecilia P. Biney, Acting National Coordinator at the GES, said the office was ill equipped and that the only vehicle was an old Nissan pick up which broke down every 10 kilometres.

She asked for trained personnel to be posted to the unit and expressed the hope that it would be raised to a divisional status with a budget line to work effectively.