TO say that a nation’s youth constitute its future is to speak a truism.
The character, disposition and orientation of the youth of a nation today can help point to the future of that nation when the current generation of leaders is gone.
It is largely on account of this crucial role the youth all over the world can play in shaping the destinies of their respective nations that progressive and people-centred nations do not toy or play games with the task of nurturing their young people.
From the family at home, through the school in the community to the national level, values, morals, principles and other attributes that society cherishes are consciously taught to the youth who, when they imbibe and live by them, grow up to be useful to themselves and the nation.
It cannot be disputed that at the core of every successful individual or entity is his or her adherence to discipline, which includes consciously obeying rules and regulations, hard work and dedication to a productive vision.
Without this key attribute of discipline, the future is, at best, murky and bleak; at worst, miserable.
It is from this background that we are very concerned, indeed, very worried, about the growing incidence of lawlessness and reckless behaviour put up by sections of our youth, especially those in our educational institutions.
Barely a week after old students of the Ghana Senior High School (GHANASCO) in Tamale, under the distinguished patronage of Vice-President John Dramani Mahama, had launched the 50th anniversary of the school with the contribution of money and other materials to enhance its status, students of the school went on the rampage, destroying school property and the belongings of teachers.
What was the cause? That the authorities had seized the mobile phones of some students who, according to the rules and regulations of the school, should not have been in possession of, let alone use, those phones in the first place.
Hardly had that died down when a similar disturbance erupted at the Navrongo Senior High School in the Upper East Region.
We cannot mention the tall list of such students’ disturbances in senior high schools and even tertiary institutions, such as happened at the Kumasi Polytechnic.
We are not the least enthused about these incidents of instability in our institutions of learning and believe that decisive actions must be taken to both nip them in the bud and also serve as a deterrent to other deviants waiting in the wings to unleash similar acts of violence.
As a first step, we welcome the setting up of a committee to investigate the GHANASCO disturbances and the two-week deadline given to it to complete its work (see back page).
We believe the committee will get to the bottom of the matter and bring out all the salient issues, including the principal characters behind the disturbances and the real motive(s), so that action can be taken to help restore normal academic work in the school.
We wish to state that all efforts must be made to ensure the implementation of the recommendations of the committee and not seek to vary those recommendations on the pleas or interventions of influential personalities whose children or wards are implicated in the disturbances.
We also want to take this opportunity to call on the Ghana Education Service (GES) to consider the formulation of a concrete policy on the use or non-use of mobile phones in second-cycle institutions so that there can be uniformity in the application of that policy in those institutions across the country.
We wish to remind students that their primary objective in school is to study and excel in their academic work, so that they can assume leadership roles in our society tomorrow. They cannot achieve this if they exhibit such high propensity to flout the rules and destroy school property.
Above all, we remind them that they are enjoined to be disciplined so that they can grow to be useful to themselves and society as a whole.
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