The former rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Adei, is calling on the government to abolish the public-school boarding system, describing it as a vehicle for children to pick up social vices.
The educationist’s comment is in reference to a viral video in which a student of the Adisadel College in Cape Coast was filmed assaulting his fellow mate.
The fight is reported to have ensued over a disagreement over a mobile phone sim. The victim and the perpetrator have subsequently been suspended by school officials.
Scrap
Speaking to Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Wednesday (26 July), Adei said the boarding school system has now lost its relevance.
“I think that it was quite a useful means of training a few elites,” Adei said on Asaase 99.5 Accra. “What has happened over time is that, boarding school as the main vehicle of training children, when especially today we have free SHS, we have to scrap the boarding system in SHSs and make it local.”
“Once we have reached a certain level, boarding school as a public means of education is a no, no. I tell you at this moment that people in boarding schools are likely to pick more anti-social things including lesbianism, occultism than before,” Adei said.
However, speaking on the same programme, the management consultant, Kobina Atta-Badu disagreed, adding that the boarding schools are instrumental in training children and fostering tribal cohesion.
“At a young age, people from different parts of the country had to come and live together in one place and people had to form bonds and make friendships,” Atta-Badu said.
“And it broke down the walls and partitions of ethnicity and tribalism,” he added. “The benefit is not just the national benefit, or social benefit.”
