The headmistress of Abetifi senior high school should be biting her fingers for over-reacting to her students’ misconduct.
She is in the news not because her students had made the school proud by performing excellently during the final school examination, but because of her overbearing attitude.
Teachers, like parents, should be able to control their adrenalin levels in the face of provocation from children under their care. Failure to exercise such controls can result in untoward repercussions such as stripping students naked and parading them at assembly.
One of the highlights of the dying week was the presence of 13 or so students during the morning devotion session of Abetifi Senior High School: an angry headmistress had ordered them to appear so as a way of venting her anger.
That was certainly not the way to go and for a headmistress of a public school. She had unwittingly allowed herself to be drawn into the gutter by students under her care.
With her experience as a teacher, she should have known better how not to allow students, especially boys, to compel her to lose her head.
We are appalled by her conduct, as are many Ghanaians who expect school authorities to treat the children under their care with responsibility commensurate with the office they are holding.
Such an uncanny punishment is unbecoming of a lady who has served the Ghana Education Service (GES) for so long and risen to the level of a headmistress.
Many have called for her head. We are unable to prescribe a punishment for her. Suffice it to state that she has lost the authority to head a public school.
Just why a lady would order boys, mature for that matter, to strip naked as she transfixes her attention on them is beyond our ken. We cannot fault those who are adducing various theories for her action. Some have gone to the extent of imputing voyeurism but we would not go that extent even as we examine that possibility.
The students who suffered the indignation of being ordered to strip naked must have lost their self-esteem and would need the intervention of psychologists to return to their former selves.
It would be interesting to know what the weird punishment was intended to achieve. If it was for a reformative purpose so the victims do not dodge morning devotion again, it has missed the point and sent the headmistress falling flat.
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