Students Immorality At All-Time High

Videos are in circulation about how school entertainment activities have degenerated into moments of provocative dances and worrying bodily contacts between male and female students.

One of such videos shows palpable ecstatic male and female students in their teens during what was an entertainment night choreographing a sexual act as the sound of music blared.

There was neither a visible presence of a master on duty nor a headmaster watching the session so the students do not cross the red line.

In a social media age, students are exposed to many temptations which only their teachers know because they are in contact with them for more hours of the day than their parents even though they are unable to do much to control the negative attitudes.

The social programmes on some television stations at night leave much to be desired. The kind of inappropriate language being spewed by both adult sexes are watched by some curious students even though it is expected that they would be asleep at that time of the night.

We have a problem at hand as a society in which high moral standards are cornerstones of our varied cultures; that is why we must be worried. One commonality between our cultures is the prevalence of high moral standards.

The provocative dances students put up during entertainment nights in the schools are benchmarks of the level of moral rot that has been unleashed upon us by modernity and its attendant hi-tec. The immorality is sweeping across society with such speed that no part of the country is being spared. A video recording of a sexual act between a teenager and a sixty-year-old paedophile will hit the screens of mobile phones at Hamile in the Upper West Region as it is released on social media.

Our moral values are under threat like never before. A multifaceted approach under the circumstances is required to control this blatant challenge to our values and mores. Like alien species descended from the sky, we have been overwhelmed by the sheer volume and speed of social media as vulnerable teens relish the moment.

Even JHS pre-holidays entertainment sessions are sorry sights. It is now a norm for JHS to hold entertainment sessions at the end of every term. It is no longer the Xmas holidays entertainment when soft drinks and small chops are brought in but a 'spinners session' with inappropriate songs such as 'One Corner' rending the air.

Pupils dance from morning to evening and school authorities allow this to go on by staying away from the assembly halls where such sessions are usually held.

An intervention is necessary at this point before it is too late. Some might even think that it is already too late. We demur because in our view nothing is impossible provided the appropriate template is used.

Headmasters, headmistresses, senior housemasters and housemasters and masters on duty must all be held responsible for breaches to a new code of conduct which the Ghana Education Service (GES) must adopt as an immediate response.