The Riot Again

The riot at Ghanasco was a while ago, but we're still feeling the fallout. I'm posting this because I think there's a deep-seated flaw in the way that the school is approaching the problem, and even in the way that the school system perceives its students.

I can't remember if I've touched on corporal punishment before. In any case, it's common in the Primary schools and is used, I think, more due to lack of training for the teachers than anything else. It's applied arbitrarily and in some cases indiscriminately. I waved a boy out of the background of a shot one time, and the master went after him with a stick. When I captured the interview audio, I could hear him crying in the background. I don't like it, maybe nobody likes it, but it's here and common. Although I've heard adults talk about it having a profoundly negative effect on their school experiences, there doesn't seem to be much inclination to get rid of it. Even children, given authority, walk around carrying sticks.

Punishment in the case of the riot, I think, is no less arbitrary. What we know is that students burned a motorbike and possibly damaged a police van. Police used teargas on demonstrating students. Students threw stones and vandalized school property. According to one girl, who seems to be the most reliable, things started when the masters tried to take away the cellphones students kept in their dormitories. The head prefect locked them away for safekeeping, and refused to open his trunk when asked. The teachers opened it anyway, and stripped the prefect of his rank. The students, unhappy, demonstrated.

This may or may not be what actually happened. In any case, every single student is being told that unless they pay 75 Ghana Cedis, they can't come back to school. This includes the day (nonboarding) students, none of whom were present at the time of the riot. This includes students who are innocent, guilty, or, as most of them probably are, somewhere in between. It amounts to over 75 000 GHC. That's about $60 000.

There are lots of problems with this. The main one I have is the lack of interest on the schools' part in differentiating between students who took part in the riot and who did not. The money is being described as a 'punishment' (and we were advised by the school not to assist our students with the fine, since it was intended to punish them) and also as a method to recoup the losses suffered by the school and police department. A committee assigned to investigate will reveal names of involved students, so in either case it makes no sense to impose a universal penalty. To do so is to deny the agency of students, and to refuse to recognize them as individuals. Or people, really, which is why there's a paragraph up there about corporal punishment. Deterrence cannot exist when punishment is arbitrarily assigned. The school seems more interested in punishment then it does in discipline, or education.

I say education because many of these students cannot afford the fine they are being asked to pay. And if NGOs sponsoring the poorest students are asked to stand aside, what exactly is it that the school is expecting to happen? These students will have to drop out.

The school has lost the basis of its authority. It can justify punishment as a corollary of social education, but it can't justify punishment to which excludes all possibility of education. The students here are more dedicated to their studies than we ever were. If the fine and the subsequent expulsions stand, the students will be justifiably angry. I wouldn't be surprised, having rioted once, if they rioted again.