Author: Henry Osabutey, Education Specialist ||Global Goodwill Ambassador || B.Ed – Counseling Psychology || M.Phill. – Human Rights, Peace and Conflict Studies |
Introduction: A Crises We Can No Longer Ignore
Over nearly two decades of working within Ghana’s education system as a teacher, education advocate, and policy observer, I have witnessed reforms that promised progress but, in practice, have produced troubling unintended consequences.
Today, indiscipline among learners in pre-tertiary schools has reached alarming levels, while learning standards continue to decline. These developments are not isolated events. They are systematic outcomes of policy choices, curriculum shifts, weakened accountability structures, and profound social changes that schools have been left to manage largely on their own.
Recent mass failure recorded in the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) are not merely assessment issues. They are symptoms of deeper problems. The rise in violation attacks on teachers by learners, some resulting in severe injuries and loss of life, signals a breakdown of authority and respect in school environments.
Even more disturbing are incidents of learners recording sexual acts within classrooms and circulating them on social media for attention, views and validation. These are not acts of youthful exuberance. They are indicators of a moral and institutional crises.
This article critically examines the major factors contributing to indiscipline and falling academic standards in Ghana’s pre-tertiary schools, drawing on lived professional experience, curriculum analysis, and policy history. It also proposes practical solutions for policymakers, school leaders, teachers, parents and communities.
The New Curriculum and the Problem of Excessive Liberty
The introduction of the Standards-Based Curriculum at the basic level and the Common Core Programme (CCP) at the secondary level was intended to shift Ghana from rote learning to competency-based education. In principle, this was a progressive step. The curriculum emphasizes creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and learner-centered pedagogy.
However, in practice, the curriculum has been accompanied by an excessive liberation of classroom authority. Several curriculum-aligned policy documents and training manuals caution teachers against “punitive discipline approaches” and emphasize child-friendly, rights-based education.
While this language aligns with international conventions on child rights, it has been interpreted, and in some cases enforced, in ways that have stripped teachers of practical disciplinary tools. Teachers now operate under constant fear of sanctions, transfers, or public accusations when attempting to correct learner misconduct.
In previous curricula, including those implemented before the 2007 and 2012 reforms, head teachers and classroom teachers were explicitly empowered to create and enforce school-based disciplinary codes. Corporal punishment was regulated, not abolished overnight without viable alternatives. Detention, manual schools tasks, and corrective sanctions were clearly defined and culturally understood by learners and parents alike. Discipline was firm, predictable, and educational.
Under the current framework, many teachers feel constrained by vague guidelines that emphasize what must not be done but provide limited clarity on what should be done when learners are persistently disruptive, violent, or openly defiant. This policy ambiguity has emboldened some learners to challenge authority, knowing that the consequences are often minimal or inconsistently applied.
Wholesale Promotion and the Erosion of Academic Accountability
One of the most damaging practices contributing to falling standards is the near-automatic promotion of learners, regardless of academic performance. While the intention is to prevent stigma and dropout, the outcome has been normalization of academic mediocrity.
In many basic schools, learners who cannot read fluently, write coherently, or demonstrate basic numeracy skills are promoted year after year. By the time they reach junior high school, learning gaps have become entrenched. Teachers at the upper levels are expected to deliver syllabus content to learners who lack foundational skills, creating frustration on both sides.
This system sends a dangerous message to learners; effort is optional and failure has no consequences. In earlier years, repetition was not seen as punishment but as academic correction. Learners understand that progression required demonstrated competence. Parents were involved in these decisions and often supported teachers in enforcing standards.
The current promotion culture undermines teacher credibility and learner motivation. It also contributes directly to mass failures at BECE and WASSCE, where national and regional assessment standards cannot be negotiated or softened.
Curriculum Reforms Without Textbooks: Learning in a Vacuum
Curriculum reform without learning resources is not reform; it is rhetoric. For nearly eight years, teachers across Ghana have struggled to implement new curricula without adequate textbooks, teacher guides, and learning materials. In many schools, especially rural and deprived areas, teachers rely on improvised notes, photocopies, or funds to deliver lessons.
The standards-Based Curriculum demands activity-based learning, project work, and formative assessment. These approaches require structured materials, visual aids, and learner text. Without them, teachers revert to talk-and-chalk methods, while learners disengage due to of concrete learning tools
This resource gap widens inequality. Well-resourced private schools adapt quickly, while public schools fall behind. The result is a two-tier system where discipline problems are more pronounced in overcrowded classrooms with under-resourced teachers who are overstretched and unsupported.
Positive Discipline Tools Without Authority
The introduction of positive discipline frameworks was meant to replace fear-8based control with guidance, counseling, and character education. These tools can be effective when properly resourced and balanced with authority. Unfortunately, in many Ghanaian schools, positive discipline has been introduced without adequate training, counseling personnel, or enforcement mechanisms.
Teachers are told to “engage learners in dialogue,” “redirect behavior,” and “build relationship,” yet they manage classes of 50 to 70 learners without trained school counselors or psychologists. In such contexts, positive discipline becomes aspirational language rather than practical strategy.
More critically, the emphasis on learner rights has not been matched with equal emphasis on learner responsibilities. Discipline cannot function in an environment where authority is constantly questioned and consequences are unclear or absent.
Social Media and the Collapse of Learner Focus
Social media has become one of the most powerful influences on young people today. Learners spend countless hours on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and WhatsApp, often late into the night. These platforms compete directly with academic focus, reading time, and reflective thinking.
The classroom consequences are obvious: shortened attention spans, reduced reading culture, imitation of inappropriate online behavior, and a constant craving for validation through likes and views. Some learners now see virality as a form of success, even when it involves immoral or dangerous acts.
The recent trend of learners recording and sharing sexual content within classrooms is a tragic illustration of this influence. Schools have become stages for online performance rather than spaces for learning. This reflects broader societal failures in regulating digital exposure and guiding moral development.
Mobile Phone Addiction and the Loss of Control
The uncontrolled use of mobile phones in schools has further weakened discipline. Despite official bans in many basic and secondary schools, enforcement is inconsistent. Learners smuggle phones into classrooms, use them during lessons, and in some cases openly defy teachers who attempt confiscation.
Phones have become tools for cheating, cyberbullying, blackmail, and public shaming of teachers. Some violent confrontations between learners and teachers have reportedly escalated after disputes over phone confiscation. This is not merely a school management issue, it is a national policy failure.
Breakdown of Teacher-PTA Relationships
In earlier years, Parents-Teacher Associations (PTAs) played a central role in maintaining discipline and moral standards. Teachers and parents worked as partners. When a learner misbehaved, the school and home responded together.
Today, this relationship has weakened significantly. Some parents view teachers as adversaries rather than allies. Others are quick to defend their children without investigating facts. In extreme cases, teachers face threats from parents for enforcing school rules.
This separation had deprived schools of community moral authority. Discipline cannot thrive where teachers are isolated and unsupported by parents.
Weak Enforcement of Entry Standards Under the Free Senior High School Policy
The introduction of the Free Senior High School (Free SHS) policy remains one of the most transformative social interventions in Ghana’s education history. The policy, introduced nationally in September 2017, was geared towards removing financial barriers and expanding access to secondary education for all BECE passers, irrespective of their socio-economic background.
The policy is embedded withing the Education Strategic Plan (2018 – 2030) and aligned with broader goals of equity and universal participation. It articulates that every student placed into a public second cycle institution via the Computerized School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) is eligible for Free SHS benefits, without a clearly enforced high minimum academic threshold beyond BECE pass status.
This lack of stringent academic entry requirement into SHS has inadvertently diminished learner seriousness about academic achievement at the basic level. With many students and parents assuming that progression to senior high is assured even with minimal BECE performance. It has expanded access, reduced financial barriers, and brought thousands of previously excluded learners into the secondary education system.
However, while access has improved, academic readiness has not received equal policy attention. Many learners no longer see academic effort at the junior high school stage as necessary for progression, since promotion to senior high school is perceived as automatic.
Data supports the scale of access achieved: after the introduction of Free SHS, enrolment in secondary education rose sharply, with enrolment figures showing a significant increase between 2017 and 2019, such that an additional 100,000 to 400,000 students gained placement who might not otherwise have enrolled without fee elimination.
However, this mass expansion was not met with proportional investment in academic readiness, teacher support, or remediation for struggling learners. In earlier periods, entry into senior high school was competitive and merit-based. Learners undertook that weak performance limited their options or required remediation.
Today, the perception that “every grade can enter SHS” has fostered complacency, reduced academic seriousness, and weakened discipline. When learners are not held accountable for outcomes, effort naturally declines. This policy gap contributes directly to mass failure rates at both BECE and WASSCE, as learners advance without the foundational skills required to succeed.
Inadequate Infrastructure and Poor Working Conditions for Teachers and School Learners
Policy framework such as the Pre-Tertiary Education Act, 2020 (Act 1049), and the Education Strategic Plan underscore the need to improve school infrastructure and teaching conditions. Yet on the ground many rural and peri-urban schools still lack essential facilities.
Teachers frequently operate without basic furniture like desks or chairs, and many schools lack functional staff rooms or administrative offices. The physical conditions under which teaching and learning take place significantly influence discipline, moral, and academic outcomes.
In many public schools, particularly in rural and underserved communities, basic infrastructure for teachers and learners is grossly inadequate. It is not uncommon to find teachers without desks, chairs, or staff common rooms. Headteachers often work from improvised spaces, lacking offices that allow them to manage staff, meet parents, or address disciplinary issues with dignity and authority.
When teachers are expected to enforce discipline and model professionalism while operating in dehumanizing conditions, the system itself undermines their authority. As a computing teacher, the situation is especially troubling. Learners are examined in Information and Communication Technology and Computing subjects without ever having access to computers.
Practical components of the curriculum are assessed theoretically, contradicting the very philosophy of the curriculum, which emphasizes hands-on learning and digital literacy. In many rural schools, computer laboratories exist only on paper. There are no devices, no internet connectivity, and no technical support.
This disconnects between curriculum expectations and school realities breeds frustration among both teachers and learners. It also sends a message to learners that standards are negotiable and that compliance, rather than competence, is sufficient.
Absence of Essential Learner Welfare and Support Facilities
Beyond academic instruction, schools are meant to provide safe, supportive environments that promote learner well-being and moral development. Unfortunately, many schools lack basic welfare facilities that are critical to discipline and emotional regulation.
Female learners in numerous schools have no changing rooms or private sanitary facilities. This affects attendance, concentration, and self-esteem, particularly during menstruation. When learners are uncomfortable or embarrassed, their engagement with learning and adherence to school rules decline.
Equally concerning is the absence of counseling offices. Even where trained and qualified school counselors exist, there are often no designated spaces for confidential guidance and psychosocial support. Counseling cannot be effective in open staff rooms or classrooms where privacy is impossible. As a result, behavioral issues that require early intervention escalate into serious indiscipline, violence, or dropout.
Schools cannot promote positive discipline while denying learners the support structure that help them manage stress, peer pressure, trauma, and identity challenges.
Overcrowded Classrooms and Teacher Overload
Empirical data from education research indicates rising student-teacher ratios in Ghana. According to a 2025 review, the student-teacher ratio at the SHS level increased from a GES benchmark of about 20:1 in 2016 to peaks above 40:1 in later years, indicating severe overcrowding and stretched teaching capacity.
Overcrowded classrooms make it nearly impossible for teachers to manage behavior effectively or deliver individualized instruction, increasing the likelihood of indiscipline and disengagement. The expansion of access through policies such as Free SHS has not been matched with proportional expansion in infrastructure and staffing. Classrooms with 60 to 80 learners are increasingly common. In such environments, meaningful classroom management becomes nearly impossible.
Teachers are unable to give individual attention, identify early signs of behavioral challenges, or apply corrective measures effectively. Overcrowding also fuels noise, peer distraction, and anonymity, conditions under which indiscipline thrives.
Teacher overload further compounds the problem. Many teachers handle multiple classes, large marking loads, and administrative duties with limited support. Fatigue and burnout reduce patience, consistency, and enforcement of rules, weakening discipline structures over time.
Declining Teacher Moral and Professional Protection
Teacher morale has a direct relationship with classroom discipline and instructional quality. When teachers feel undervalued, under protected, and constantly threatened by accusations or violence, they naturally adopt defensive teaching styles. Some avoid enforcing rules altogether to protect themselves.
Recent attacks on teachers by learners, some resulting in death or permanent injury, have sent a chilling message across the profession. The slow pace of investigations and limited public accountability in some cases deepen fear and insecurity. A system that fails to protect its teachers cannot expect them to assert authority confidently.
Societal Value Shifts and the Normalization of Indiscipline
Schools do not operate in isolation. Broader societal attitudes towards authority, wealth, morality and success shape learner behavior. Today’s learners are exposed to social narratives that glorify material success without effort, fame without responsibility, and rebellion without consequence.
When society celebrates shortcuts and instant gratification, schools struggle to promote patience, discipline, and sustained effort. Indiscipline in schools is therefore not only an educational issue but a societal one.
Weak School-Community Accountability Structures
In the past, schools were embedded within communities that shared responsibility for child upbringing. Traditional leaders, religious bodies, and PTAs reinforced school rules and values. Today, these accountability structures have weakened.
Teachers are often isolated, with limited backing from parents and community leaders. In some cases, disciplinary actions taken by schools are overturned or challenged without due process. This erodes institutional authority and emboldens learner misconduct.
Evidence from Previous Curricula and School Governance Structure
Earlier education policies explicitly empowered head teachers to create school-specific rules aligned with national guidelines. Schools operated withing clear disciplinary framework supported by district education offices and local communities.
These systems were not perfect, but they recognized a basic truth: learning requires order, and order requires authority.
The Way Forward: Practical and Inclusive Solutions
Reversing the decline in discipline and learning standards in Ghana’s pre-tertiary schools will require more than isolated reforms. It demands a coordinated response involving government, educators, parents, communities, and learners themselves. The goal should not be a return to fear-based schooling, but the restoration of balance: firm authority, clear expectations, learner support, and shared responsibility.
1. Restore Balanced Authority in Schools: There is an urgent need to restore clarity and balance in school discipline. Current policies emphasize what teachers must not do, but offer limited guidance on what they can do when learners persistently violate school rules. This has created uncertainty and fear among teachers and school leaders.
The Ministry of Education and the Ghana Education Service must clearly define acceptable disciplinary measures that are firm, corrective, and humane. Teachers who act professionally, fairly, and within approved guidelines should be protected from victimization, public shaming, or arbitrary sanctions. Authority in schools must be respected, not feared, and teachers must be empowered to create orderly environment where learning can thrive.
2. Review Promotion and Progression Policies: Promotion should reflect learning, not merely age or time spent in school. While inclusivity is important, automatic progression regardless of performance weakens motivation and undermines academic seriousness.
Policy makers must revisit promotion guidelines to ensure that learners demonstrate minimum competencies before advancing. Where learners struggle, structured remedial programs, bridging classes, and targeted academic support should be introduced rather than automatic promotion. Learners must understand that effort matters and that learning has clear expectations.
3. Match Curriculum Reforms with Learning Resources: No curriculum, however well designed, can succeed without the tools required for implementation. Textbooks, teacher guides, science and ICT equipment, and teaching aids must be made available, particularly in public and rural schools.
Government and development partners should prioritize the timely distribution of curriculum-aligned materials. Special attention must be given to practical subjects such as Computing, Science, and Technical Skills, where learners are expected to demonstrate hands-on competence Examinations must reflect what learners are realistically exposed to in schools.
4. Regulate Digital Exposure and Learner Access to Information: The influence of digital media on learners cannot e ignored. While technology offers learning opportunities, uncontrolled access has become a major source of distraction, moral decline, and indiscipline. Clear national guidelines on mobile phone use in pre-tertiary schools must be enforced consistently.
Beyond schools, the Ministry of Communication and Digitalization must work with regulators, telecom companies, and content platforms to restrict learners’ access to unprescribed and harmful online content during school hours. Educational filters, age-appropriate access controls, and digital responsibility education should form part of a broader child protection strategy. Schools alone cannot manage the digital challenge. It requires national coordination and firm policy enforcement.
5. Rebuild and Strengthen PTA Partnership: Discipline is most effective when schools and homes speak with one voice. The weakening of Parent-Teacher Associations has deprived schools of critical moral and disciplinary support. PTAs must be repositioned as active partners in school governance, learner discipline, and value formation.
Parents should be encouraged to support school rules, respect teacher authority, and take responsibility for their children’s behavior. Regular engagement, open communications, and shared decision-making can rebuild trust and cooperation between teachers and families.
6. Invest in Counseling and Learner Support Services: Many discipline issues stem from unmet emotional, social, and psychological needs. Positive discipline cannot succeed without proper support systems.
Every school should have access to trained counselors and designated counseling spaces that ensure privacy and confidentiality. Learners facing trauma, peer pressure, addiction, or behavioral challenges need professional guidance before issues escalate into violence or chronic indiscipline. Counseling should be treated as a core educational service, not an optional add-on.
7. Ensure Safety and Legal Protection for Teachers: No education system can function where teachers feel unsafe. Recent violent attacks on teachers by learners represent a serious breakdown of respect for authority and human life. Acts of violence against teachers must be treated as criminal offences, not school disciplinary matters alone. Swift investigations, clear sanctions, and public accountability are essential to deter future incidents. Teachers must be assured that the state values their lives, dignity, and professional service.
Conclusion: Reclaiming the Soul of Education
The decline in discipline and learning standards in Ghana’s pre-tertiary schools is not the result of a single policy failure. It is the cumulative effect of weakened accountability, policy-practice gaps, infrastructural neglect, and societal shifts.
Addressing these issues requires honest reflection, courageous policy reform, and a renewed commitment to restoring balance between access, quality, discipline, and dignity in our schools. Education is not only about curriculum content. It is about character formation, discipline, and the transmission of values. Ghana’s pre-tertiary education system stands at a crossroads.
Without urgent, balanced, and courageous reforms, the gap between schooling and learning will continue to widen. The future of our children, and of our nation, depends on restoring order, respect, and accountability to our schools. This responsibility belongs to all of us.
More About the Author: Henry Osabutey is an education specialist, professional teacher, and education development practitioner with nearly two decades of experience in Ghana’s pre-tertiary education system. He has worked extensively in classroom teaching, school support, youth development, and education policy engagement, with a strong focus on discipline, learning standards, and equity in access to quality education.
He is the Founder of Evolve Afrika LLC and its education subsidiary, Evolve Afrika Legacy International Institute (EALII), initiatives committed to empowerment through education, leadership development, and skills training across Africa. Henry also serves as Education and Outreach Lead at PACKs Africa, where he supports evidence-informed learning, community engagement, and capacity building initiatives.
Henry is a Member of the Africa Evidence Network, contributing to conversations on the use of research and data to improve education policy and practice on the continent. His work bridges grassroots classroom realities with policy advocacy, emphasizing practical, context-responsive solutions to systemic challenges in education. He is widely engaged in education reform discussions, youth leadership development, and institutional strengthening, and continues to advocate for balanced discipline, teacher protection, and learner-centered support systems within Ghana’s education sector.
Connect with him on all social media: Henry Osabutey. Enjoy a beautiful season!!!!!
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