A growing wave of student indiscipline and unrest in senior high schools in Ghana’s Upper East Region is being fueled by poor communication, unresolved grievances, and rising ethnic and religious tensions, the Executive Director of RISE Ghana, Ahmed Awal Kariama, has said.
Speaking on A1 Radio’s Day Break Upper East show, Mr. Kariama described the situation as a “grave concern,” warning that repeated student disturbances point to deeper structural and social issues within schools.
“This subject matter… is very important because, like you rightly said, the canker of student indiscipline and student riots is not ending, and it seems to be worsening,” he said. “As we try to resolve [issues] from previous schools, new schools come up. So it’s a grave concern for all of us.”
He stressed that the stakes go beyond school discipline. “These are going to be future leaders who are going to be making decisions, and so they need to have the best kind of moral character [and] the best kind of tolerance to be able to understand and relate to people of different backgrounds and different ideologies and beliefs.”
Extremism risk
Mr. Kariama was concerned that the trend could be linked to broader border security concerns, citing RISE Ghana’s Peace in Schools project, an initiative focused on “Preventing Extremism and Conflict in Educational Institutions and Schools.”
The project, he said, examined “the dynamics of conflict, what are the drivers of student riots in the schools, who are the actors, what are the motivations, and where do these occur.” It also looked at “how do they usually affect social cohesion in the schools, and how do we prevent our students from becoming radicalized.”
“We all know that our neighboring countries, Burkina Faso, Togo, and… Nigeria, have suffered a lot of violent extremism,” he said. “So we were also concerned that if we are not careful, the way our student riots are going, and the increasing use of violence to address differences in schools… these extremist groups can exploit these differences and radicalize our students.”
Small grievances, big consequences
Mr. Kariama said many conflicts stem from misunderstandings rather than major wrongdoing. “Some of these riots are not just driven by issues among students per se, but it’s about disagreement, misunderstanding, and breakdown of communication,” he said.
He cited one school where students were preparing to riot over the lack of entertainment activities. “Their main problem was the fact that they had not had entertainment… for over two years,” he said. “The students were plotting and planning to riot.”
After mediation, school authorities revealed the entertainment budget was less than 100 Ghana cedis, a constraint that had not been communicated. “It came out strongly that it’s not that the school is preventing or refusing… but that they don’t have adequate resources,” he said. “So the students understood.”
Mr. Kariama called this approach “preventive diplomacy”, using dialogue to resolve tensions before they explode.
Ethnic and religious divisions
He also pointed to identity-based polarization. “Some [conflicts] are around ethnic differences. Some are also around religious differences,” he said. Students sometimes interpret disciplinary actions as ethnic targeting. “People come to see that, ‘Why do you punish my tribesman?’ And that leads to confusion.”
In some cases, he said, community members have entered schools after incidents, with students “taking up the mantle by themselves to exact discipline,” worsening tensions.
Weak security response
Mr. Kariama criticized what he described as limited early warning and response capacity. “The Regional Security Council, the District Security Council, the police hierarchy… are not able to early detect some of these pockets and nuances,” he said. Even when they respond, “some of their responses are not effective and sustained enough.”
“There are times student riots occur, the police go… but the next morning you hear worse incidents happen,” he said, calling for measures that “de-escalate the matter, prevent recurrence, and ensure sustainable peace.”
Proposed solutions
RISE Ghana recommends forming core student groups trained in “nonviolent activism.”
“Nonviolent activism promotes the culture of using preventive diplomacy… and nonviolence to express one’s differences,” Kariama said. “Differences will continue to occur as long as humans interact.”
He urged the Ghana Education Service and regional education authorities to strengthen civic education. “We need to… allow students to be able to express their grievances without resulting in the use of violence,” he said.
Mr. Kariama’s comments come amid ongoing debate over proposals to restrict ethnic groupings in schools, as authorities search for ways to curb unrest and strengthen unity in second-cycle institutions.
Source: A1 Radio | 101.1 Mhz | Mark Kwasi Ahumah Smith | Bolgatanga
