Punish Authorities Who Use Pupils for Political Activities

Chairman of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah, is calling on the Ghana Education Service to sanction school heads that avail their pupils to be used for political activities.

“…they punish the schools that engage these children in these kinds of acts; I think somebody must be [held] responsible for it,” Mr. Appiah told Joy News in an interview.

The comments by the Executive Director of Child Rights International follow social media outrage by some Ghanaians about some pupils who held placards during President Akufo-Addo’s visit to Tema on December 5, as part of his recent tour of Greater Accra region.

The placard-wielding pupils, who were drawn from several basic schools in the Tema East Constituency, were seen in the photos with inscriptions that glorify President Akufo-Addo.

“President Akufo-Addo and Hon. Titus Glover will deliver”; “Ghana is working again under your leadership”; “Mr President, don’t be moved by your detractors”, among others.

This comes barely a month ago when a directive was issued by the Ghana Education Service in the Asuogyaman District of the Eastern Region, asking school heads to release their pupils to line up on the streets to welcome the President during his tour of the region. That directive was later reversed.

Bright Appiah is Executive Director of Child Rights International.

But Bright Appiah argues that the head teachers should bear ultimate responsibility whenever their pupils or students are made to undertake certain activities that they are not supposed to do.

“Those who allow these children to be doing that should be sanctioned,” he stated.

---myjoyonline