ELS: MBN360 EDUCATION
Prof. Fatuma Nyaguthi Chege, Professor of Education at Kenyatta University, has identified inconsistent enforcement of school disciplinary codes as a major driver of indiscipline in Ghanaian schools, warning that when rules are applied selectively based on a student’s background or family connections, the resulting confusion breeds resentment and rebellion among learners.
Speaking at the closing ceremony of the National Conference on Stemming the Growing Indiscipline in Schools, Prof. Chege delivered a wide-ranging analysis of the structural and administrative failures fuelling misconduct in schools, moving beyond individual student behaviour to examine deeper systemic gaps within Ghana’s education institutions.
Prof. Chege was direct in describing how uneven enforcement of disciplinary codes across different students undermines the credibility of school authority structures altogether.
“In some schools, they apply. In other schools, they are selected. When the headmistress’s daughter jumps the wall to town, the code doesn’t apply. When my daughter jumps, the code applies. It’s becoming a selective application of the code, and this confuses some students and can trigger indiscipline acts.”Prof. Fatuma Nyaguthi Chege, Professor of Education at Kenyatta University
She linked this inconsistency to a broader need for government and the Ghana Education Service to establish clearer, uniformly enforced policy guidance on emerging challenges such as mobile phone and social media use, citing concerns raised by fellow conference participants around platforms like TikTok and WhatsApp, as well as the growing problem of cyberbullying among students.
Overcrowding Leaves Students Feeling Unsafe
Turning to physical infrastructure, Prof. Chege argued that overcrowded classrooms and dormitories are directly contributing to rising indiscipline, describing a school environment where policy gaps in infrastructure planning have left some institutions severely congested while others remain under-enrolled.
She painted a troubling picture of conditions in overcrowded schools, where students are forced to sit on corridors or share beds due to insufficient space, leaving many feeling unsafe within their own school environment.
“Some of them sit on corridors, some too on a bed, and they are so much overcrowded. They feel they are not safe, and some take the law into their own hands because the teachers are not motivated.”Prof. Fatuma Nyaguthi Chege, Professor of Education at Kenyatta University
She added that overwhelmed teachers, exhausted by unmanageable class sizes, sometimes fail to intervene when conflicts arise among students, inadvertently signalling to learners that misbehaviour carries little consequence.
Prof. Chege also flagged the slow pace of administrative processes in addressing disciplinary cases as a significant factor weakening the deterrent effect of school rules. She explained that when sanctions for misconduct take years to be finalised, other students lose confidence that consequences will follow bad behaviour, encouraging a culture of impunity within schools.
She argued that this administrative sluggishness effectively teaches students that the system can be exploited, since visible, timely consequences remain rare even in cases of clear rule violations by both students and, at times, teachers.
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Gaps in Teacher Training and Classroom Management
On the human resource side, Prof. Chege identified a lack of ongoing training for teachers, particularly in classroom management and conflict resolution, as another structural weakness contributing to indiscipline.
She said many teachers lack the patience or preparedness to manage large, diverse classrooms effectively, and often fail to recognise students facing specific learning or sensory challenges, such as difficulty hearing instructions or seeing material written on the board.
Rather than identifying and supporting such students appropriately, she said many teachers simply label them as lazy or unmotivated, a misjudgement she attributed directly to insufficient training. She further noted that without adequate preparation, teachers struggle to properly engage so-called “attention-seeking” students who may in fact be signalling unmet needs rather than deliberate defiance.
Prof. Chege returned repeatedly to the theme of teacher burnout, describing classrooms with as many as sixty to seventy students as unmanageable, leaving teachers unable to properly mark assignments or engage individually with learners. She said this strain creates space for misbehaviour to flourish, since teachers simply cannot monitor or respond to every student adequately under such conditions.
She further pointed to the absence of dedicated disciplinary staff in many schools, noting that some institutions lack assistant headmasters, senior housemasters or even basic housing infrastructure to support teachers responsible for discipline enforcement. In such cases, she said, headteachers are left to manage disciplinary matters largely alone, an unsustainable burden that leaves gaps students often exploit.
Compounding this, she said frequent transfers of experienced headteachers erode institutional memory around discipline management, disrupting continuity in how schools address behavioural issues over time.
Interference From External Authorities Weakens School Leadership
Prof. Chege also raised concerns about interference in school administration from parents, chiefs, imams, pastors and political figures, arguing that such external pressure often undermines the authority of headteachers, who may feel compelled to comply out of fear of transfer or reprisal.
Prof. Fatuma Nyaguthi Chege, Professor of Education at Kenyatta University
She said weak engagement from School Management Committees (SMCs) and Parent-Teacher Associations (PTAs) compounds the problem, describing a pattern where some PTAs, upon being told not to interfere in administrative matters, disengage entirely rather than finding an appropriate supportive role.
She added that confusion over the respective authority of board members, school management and district education offices has, in some cases, led board chairs to overstep their roles and attempt to directly control school administration, further destabilising disciplinary structures within institutions.
Taken together, Prof. Chege’s submission painted indiscipline in Ghanaian schools not as a simple failure of student character, but as the product of overlapping structural weaknesses spanning infrastructure, governance, human resource management and inconsistent policy enforcement.
Her analysis suggested that addressing the country’s growing disciplinary challenges would require reforms extending well beyond individual classrooms, touching on how schools are resourced, staffed, governed and shielded from undue external interference.
