Ghana's Punishment Regime Review: Necessary Correction or Retreat to a Harsher Past?

Ghana's education sector is heading into July 2026 with an uncomfortable admission from the top: the current student disciplinary framework is not working, and the government intends to rebuild it. Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu told Parliament that the country may need to rethink its punishment regime entirely and hand the Ghana Education Service greater authority to deal firmly with student misconduct, responding to a question from Kwadaso MP Prof. Kingsley Nyarko on what measures were being taken to restore order at the pre-tertiary level.

What triggered the review
The Minister's remarks came against a backdrop of incidents he described as "un-Ghanaian" students carrying firearms onto school premises, the vandalizing of CCTV cameras installed by Prempeh College's Old Students Association, and a case during WASSCE in which students allegedly assaulted a teacher for refusing to help them cheat. He explicitly linked the erosion of discipline to the repeal of corporal punishment, arguing that its removal had created a degree of laxity in how schools respond to serious misconduct.

Days earlier, GES management had constituted a formal committee to review its Code of Conduct, a move triggered in part by public claims from a New Patriotic Party regional secretary that the Service no longer punishes misbehaving students and had quietly abolished class repetition claims GES rejected as inaccurate, while confirming that a national conference on school discipline, drawing in faith-based organizations and civil society groups, is being planned for Sunyani before the end of July.

The numbers behind the alarm are not trivial. Field assessments have found that a large share of senior high school students have either survived or witnessed physical bullying on campus, and GES's own disciplinary case data reportedly show a meaningful year-on-year rise in student infractions, with urban centers in Greater Accra and Ashanti increasingly affected by outside gang influence, weapon smuggling, and the illicit movement of smartphones into boarding houses.

How the review is likely to sound
Based on where the conversation currently sits, three things are likely to define the tone of whatever emerges from the GES committee and the Sunyani conference.

First, expect the language of "authority" and "sanctions" to dominate over the language of "positive discipline" that has defined GES policy since 2017, when corporal punishment was formally banned and teachers were directed to use non-violent behavioral management instead. The Minister's own framing cloaking GES with power to act "ruthlessly" against misconduct signals a shift back toward harsher, more clearly enumerated consequences rather than counseling-first approaches, even if a full return to corporal punishment is unlikely given Ghana's alignment with the 128 countries that have banned it.

Second, expect specificity to be the headline improvement, not severity. GES's most recent Code of Conduct overhaul was already criticized by stakeholders such as NAGRAT for leaving key offences vaguely defined what exactly counts as an unacceptably "low" haircut, or how many unexplained absences trigger sanction which produced inconsistent, discretionary punishment across schools. A credible review will likely tighten these definitions rather than simply raise penalties across the board.

Third, expect the review to be framed as one leg of a three-part strategy rather than a standalone fix. The Ministry has already flagged a Behavioral Standards Guide for learners, a revised Teachers' Code of Conduct, and a National Safe School Policy as parallel initiatives, alongside continued collaboration with the Ministry for the Interior and the Narcotics Control Commission on drug-related offences in schools. The punishment regime review is the enforcement arm of that package, not a replacement for it.

The tension the review cannot avoid
Ghana's own research literature on school discipline complicates the "just get tougher" instinct. Academic reviews of the positive discipline model note there is no clear consensus that harsher punishment alone reduces indiscipline, and some studies have found that bans and legislation by themselves are insufficient to shift behavior without parallel investment in teacher capacity and school environment.

At the same time, critics writing on the current crisis have pointed to overcrowded classrooms and dormitories a direct consequence of high-enrollment policies as diluting the ability of housemasters and teachers to monitor students at all, regardless of how strict the written code becomes.

A punishment regime review that ignores that infrastructural strain risks producing a tougher code that schools lack the staffing capacity to actually enforce.

The most contentious fault line, though, will be corporal punishment itself. Some advocacy voices have explicitly called for the Sunyani-class national conference to revisit the 2017 ban and replace it with what they term "enforceable, rigorous alternatives," a position that will likely draw pushback from child-rights and civil-society groups given Ghana's international commitments on non-violent discipline.

Whatever the committee ultimately proposes, it will need to reconcile the Minister's parliamentary rhetoric about ruthless enforcement with GES's simultaneous public insistence that disciplinary committees already function and that claims of a discipline vacuum are exaggerated two positions that currently sit somewhat awkwardly next to each other in the government's own messaging.

Mustapha Bature Sallama.
Medical/ Science Communicator,
Private Investigator, Criminal investigation and Intelligence Analysis.

International Conflict Management and Peace Building.USIP

mustysallama@gmail.com
+233-555-275-880
References
Graphic Online, "GES constitutes committee to review student discipline code amid rising SHS indiscipline," June 2026. https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/general-news/ges-constitutes-committee-to-review-student-discipline-code-amid-rising-shs-indiscipline.html

ModernGhana, "GES rejects claims of automatic promotion and lack of student discipline," June 29, 2026. https://www.modernghana.com/news/1506269/ges-rejects-claims-of-automatic-promotion-and-lack.html

ModernGhana, "It's alarming how SHS students have the courage to sell marijuana on campus; let's give GES more authority to punish Education Minister." https://www.modernghana.com/news/1507398/its-alarming-how-shs-students-have-the-courage.html

Graphic Online, "'Students who sell weed on campus must be dismissed outright' Education Minister." https://www.graphic.com.gh/news/education/students-who-sell-weed-on-campus-must-be-dismissed-outright-education-minister.html

MyJoyOnline, "GES to expel SHS students for sexual offenses, others in new code of conduct." https://www.myjoyonline.com/ges-to-expel-shs-students-for-sexual-offenses-others-in-new-code-of-conduct/

"Towards a Positive Discipline Model in Ghanaian Schools: Views of Stakeholders," Journal of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences, 2025. https://journals.editononline.com/index.php/jpbs/article/download/752/1160

ModernGhana, "A National Emergency: Reclaiming Discipline and Character in Ghana's Educational Institutions." https://www.modernghana.com/news/1507442/a-national-emergency-reclaiming-discipline-and.amp

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