Human rights abuses through corporal punishment a case study at Kwahu Tafo Islmaic Basic School

Abstract

The study is on human rights violations in Ghanaian schools and was conducted at Kwahu Tafo Islamic basic school in the eastern region of Ghana. This study sought to find out the types of human rights violations in schools, the causes and effects on students’ academic performance and how to seek redress when they are abused. The method of data collection included observation, the use of self-administered questionnaire for twenty-five (25) teaching and non-teaching staff and fifty (50) students. Fifty other students were interviewed in random manner to solicit more information for the study. The data collected were analysed and interpreted manually for the appropriate tables to be generated. The study revealed that there are human rights violations going on in school, especially canning which is a form of corporal punishment as well as verbal abuse, assault, molestation/bullying from seniors to juniors, over-crowding in the classrooms and many more violations of the students’ rights. The researcher, therefore, suggests that the Ghana government should conduct educational seminars for teachers and non-teaching staff, to be aware of these fundamental human rights and the mechanism for their protection so that they would not violate the rights of these students anyhow, and encourage teachers to stop abusing our future leaders. On the whole, a major discovery in the research revealed that knowledge and understanding of human rights values is very limited even among the well-educated, which again, limits the prominence of human rights enjoyed in our society.