Some students of the Chiana Senior High School sacked by GES for allegedly insulting President Akufo-Addo, are asking for forgiveness.
The plea comes after the minority side in Parliament described the punishment as harsh and a threat to their education. The minority has thus called for a review of the punishment.
The students allegedly made derogatory comments about the President and the free SHS policy in a video in 2022.
GES authorities at the time condemned their conduct in a statement, and apologized to the President on their behalf.
But after a probe, the GES Director General, Dr. Eric Nkansah on November 29, 2022, directed the students’ sacking.
The Ghana Education Service in a letter to one of the parents of one of the students, said her conduct was “considered very undesirable and contrary to the acceptable standards of conduct generally required of any student in our Educational system in Ghana.”
Some of the students told Citi FM that they were only influenced by social media trends to utter those words.
One of the students, Hamidu Huzaimah Daabu, said they were asked to leave the school on November 15, 2022. She said they were called for a meeting on January 11, 2023, only to be handed their dismissal letters.
“It was yesterday [January 11] that they called us to come for a meeting. I was thinking that they were calling us to come and do some manual punishment. But when we got there with our parents, we were given dismissal letters which made us cry before the headmistress and the district director of education.”
“I am pleading for them to have mercy on us because we are left with a few months to complete [SHS] and come home, we are willing to sign a bond and any other punishment.”
“We were only imitating people on social media. We didn’t know it will go this far, please have mercy on us,” she pleaded.
Another student, Plange Matteer said, “we are sorry for what we did. We didn’t know what we were saying will go viral. They should please forgive us.”
