The Media Coalition against Open Defecation (M-CODE) has called on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to adopt a strategy aimed at improving security on schools across the country.
According to the group, physical and verbal abuse of school teachers is the order of the day in their quest to ward off community members from vandalizing school toilets, openly defecating and smoking on school compounds.
M-CODE is raising this concern on the back of the assault and death of a teacher at the Salvation Army Basic School at Asiakwa in the Eastern Region.
Speaking to Citi News,Convener of the Coalition, Emmanuel Addai, said drastic measures have to be put in place to forestall a reoccurrence.
“The school compounds are no longer secured. The Ghana Education Service now has to develop a strategy to ensure that there is adequate security on the school compounds so that teachers and students feel safe anytime they are there. Because people go there and they want to defecate and smoke and when you warn them, then they want to kill you. Are our children and teachers safe in our schools?”
“We don’t see any improvement in the foreseeable future so the best option now is to ask the police to make individuals and households to be alert and be looking into these institutions because they are too open and people go there as and when they want”, he added.
The RME teacher, George Somuah Bosompem died at the St. Joseph’s Hospital at Koforidua where he was rushed to after an attack by four teenagers.
According to the Regional Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Ebenezer Tetteh, initial investigations by the police showed that late George Somuah Bosompem incurred the wrath of the six teenagers, aged between 18 and 19 after he threatened to report them to the Police for stealing his farm produce, among other things.
“Apparently, a threat from Bossompem that he was going to inform the police to arrest those invading his backyard infuriated the young men who, according to the police, accosted him in the vicinity, landing an assault on him to an early grave,” the Daily Graphic noted.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Regional Police Command is on a manhunt for one more suspect who was involved in the case.
Five of the teenage suspects are currently in Police custody.
Four of them had earlier been arraigned and have been remanded to reappear on the 14th of May 2019.
The Asiakwa Court presided over by Ms. Alice Efua Yirenkyi charged, Richard Anani, Emmanuel Mireku, Philip Okodie and Paul Boadu with conspiracy to commit murder and murder.
