The students were fired as a result of a widely shared video that surfaced in November of last year in which they were seen cursing President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and venting their unhappiness over the extreme hardships that the nation was experiencing.
A letter dated November 29, 2022, signed by the Director General of the GES, Dr Eric Nkansah and handed over to the guardians of the affected students communicated their dismissal.
The GES described the conduct of the affected students in the dismissal letter as undesirable, and contrary to the acceptable standards of conduct generally required of any student in Ghana’s educational system.
The disciplinary action is an outcome of an investigation that was launched into the video by the GES and the management of the Chiana SHS after they apologized to the President on behalf of the students involved.
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The decision by the GES did not consider an appeal by the Executive Director of Child Rights International, Bright Appiah to the authorities to be lenient in dealing with the students.
“When children exhibit things that are abnormal the interest of the state is to correct that abnormality. The system of correcting that behaviour is not a kind of system that should bring victimization. It is not a kind of system that should tarnish the image of the children but it should be the system that will reform them and then rehabilitate them so that they can see things from the normal perspective in terms of how the state expects children will behave at the particular age and all that,” starfm.com.gh quotes him as saying.
In that same November, Salamatu Mohammed, a 40-year-old, mother of four was arrested and detained by the Ghana Police Service for insulting and wishing President Akufo-Addo dead
The woman who is said to be a resident of the Ablekuma North Constituency in Accra was arrested after a viral TikTok video of her lamenting the prevailing severe hardship and the attendant skyrocketing prices of goods and services.
