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The Director in charge of Guidance and Counselling Unit of the Ghana Education Service, Mrs Gifty Sekyi-Bremansu, has called on school administrators to develop and implement gender-based violence policies in order to make the school environment safer for students.
She said the phenomenon of violence against students, especially sexual harassment had become a very common feature which required a concerted effort to deal with in schools.
“As educators and stakeholders, we have a collective responsibility to create a safe, inclusive, and supportive environment for all our students,” she said.
Mrs Sekyi-Bremansu made the called at a stakeholder engagement and launch of this year’s nationwide campaign against gender-based violence in secondary schools across the country in Accra yesterday.
The campaign, which forms part of the Orange the World: 16 days of Activism for Safer Schools, is being organised by the Ghana Education Service (GES) with support from the Ministry of Education.
It is on the theme: ‘Safe Spaces, Empowered Voices: Ending Sexual Harassment in Our Schools” and aims at creating awareness about all forms of violence against students, and also help eliminate sexual abuse and harassment in secondary schools.
Mrs Sekyi-Bremansu explained that the safe school programme over the period had implemented various interventions to prevent school-based violence, to make the school environment conducive, secure, safe, and inclusive for effective teaching and learning.
She said with support from some development partners, the programme was now transition from awareness creation to action through mobilising stakeholders to create a safe and inclusive future for our schools.
According to her, a study conducted by the United Nations International Children Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in 20022 revealed that 51 per cent of Ghanaian students were knowledgeable about sexual harassment, implying that the remaining 49 per cent were not knowledgeable about sexual harassment.
She said the media must begin to highlight issues of prevention, support and accountability of sexual harassment in their reportage.
On her part, the GES Key Advisor, T-TEL, Ms Dinah Adiko, advised school administrators to ensure that focal persons for sexual harassment in the schools were people of character.
“When the schools appoint their sexual focal persons it must be based on character vetting,” she said.
Ms Adiko noted that character vetting was very important despite the fact that such individuals would be offered extended training before they actually start working.
