Protecting Ghana's Students: Is the Time Right to Revisit the Case for Comprehensive Sexuality Education in Our Schools?

When students at Obuasi Senior High Technical School vented their anger on campus in August this year, damaging property and forcing the school to close, many of us saw only indiscipline. Look a little closer, and a more troubling picture appears: young people who, by several accounts, had been trying for months to be heard.

At least 19 female students have accused their headmaster of sexual abuse over the past year, according to an investigation by journalist Manasseh Azure Awuni. The Ghana Education Service interdicted him on 14 October, and on 20 October the Interior Minister told Parliament that he had been arrested and that DNA evidence was being pursued. The headmaster has signaled legal action. The allegations are yet to be tested in court; he is entitled to due process, and I will not prejudge the outcome.

A system that did not listen

We do not need a verdict, however, to learn from how this case was handled. Teachers responsible for girl-child education and safeguarding reportedly wrote several letters and petitions, and the Municipal Education Directorate was aware of complaints. The president of NAGRAT said 38 teachers were asked to leave the school after speaking out against the headmaster, and that concerns date back to 2025. A district inquiry reportedly heard from only nine of 26 students, and treated one girl's account of unwanted touching as merely her "definition" of assault.

The warning signs were there. The people who raised them were sidelined. Left with no channel they trusted, the students eventually took matters into their own hands. Today, newly posted first-years cannot even begin classes.

Sadly, Obuasi is not an exception. The same school saw a housemaster accused of misconduct in 2018. A national survey by the Gender Studies and Human Rights Documentation Center estimated that about one in 11 Ghanaian girls will experience sexual violence from a teacher or other school authority figure. Another study of 490 pupils in public schools found that 11.2% had been victims of rape or defilement, with girls making up 92% of victims, and concluded that our child-protection system was ineffective. Years earlier, a UNICEF survey found that 6% of schoolgirls said teachers had threatened to lower their grades unless they agreed to sex.

The conversation we abandoned

In 2019, Ghana's attempt to introduce Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE) was withdrawn after a fierce backlash from religious bodies and others who feared it would bring foreign values into our classrooms. As recently as January this year, the Catholic Bishops' Conference sought assurances that CSE would not return to the curriculum.

Those concerns deserve respect. Parents have a right to shape what their children learn about morality and family life, and many sincerely believe that moral formation and abstinence teaching are the best protection a child can have.

But Obuasi forces an uncomfortable question: what has our silence protected? Not the girls who reportedly were summoned alone to a headmaster's residence. Not the students who lacked the words, or the confidence, to say clearly that what was happening to them was abuse and would be taken seriously.

What the evidence tells us

At its core, good sexuality education teaches children that their bodies belong to them, that no adult, however senior, has the right to touch them or trade favors for grades, and that telling a trusted adult is the right thing to do. A Cochrane review of 24 trials involving 5,802 children found that school-based abuse-prevention education improved children's knowledge and protective behavior and made them more likely to disclose abuse, with no sign that it made them anxious. That matters, because abusers depend on one thing above all else: silence.

A Ghanaian way forward

Revisiting CSE does not mean importing a foreign curriculum wholesale. It means building our own, with parents, faith leaders, teachers and young people at the table, anchored in values most Ghanaians share: dignity, respect and the protection of children. Whatever we call it, certain lessons should be non-negotiable: bodily autonomy, consent, recognizing abuse of authority, and knowing how to report it. And because only about half of our adolescents reach senior high school, these lessons must begin in basic school.

Education alone is not enough. Children who speak up need adults and systems that respond. That means confidential reporting channels that do not run through the school head, such as a national toll-free line linked to the Department of Social Welfare and the Police DOVVSU. It means real protection for teachers who blow the whistle, not transfers. It means making the GES Code of Conduct legally binding, as the Education Minister has proposed. And it means counseling, legal support and uninterrupted schooling for the Obuasi students.

So, is the time, right?

I believe it is. The real question was never whether our children will learn about sex and relationships; they will, from peers, phones and, too often, from those who would exploit them. The question is whether they will learn from us, in a framework we design, that their bodies are their own and that adults who abuse power will be held to account.

The students of Obuasi SHTS had to protest to be heard. The next generation should not have to.

About the Writer
The writer is the Programs Manager for Human Rights and Social Inclusion at The Ghana Center for Democratic Development (CDD-Ghana).