Medley Of Negativities

Last week's reports about scattered incidents of violence across the country, some involving students, cast a shadow on security in the country.

The reports also point at a society in a degenerative mode even as adults or stakeholders with oversight responsibilities over the youth fold their arms somewhat helplessly and sometimes perhaps not taking note of the developing anomalies.

We stand the risk of losing a generation should we continue the indifference towards taking responsibility for moulding our youth.

A female student of the University Of Cape Coast was found dead at a nearby beach about which the police have commenced investigation.

At Obuasi, in the Ashanti Region, a group of armed young men reportedly invaded the Christ The King Senior High School (SHS) with an obvious intention to wreak violence as their mission left two students with machete injuries.

From Cape Coast came a report about the discovery of the remains of a student who had just completed writing his final WASSCE papers, a victim of suicide.

Students of Bawku Senior High School (SHS) had attacked their teachers for not allowing them to cheat during the just ended WASSCE.

A male teacher was also captured in a video in a scuffle on a Senior High School (SHS) campus. The Bole SHS sex scandal is another kettle of fish enough commentaries have been presented.

Five Central University students are being investigated for allegedly selling wee-laced toffee and sobolo to fellow students on campus.

Something is wrong with society but we appear to be in denial mode about this reality. Apart from the occasional mention through news reports about these occurrences, nothing has been done to arrest them.

Shouldn't we as a country converse about the rising tide of indiscipline among our youth? The answer is definitely an affirmative but who would start it when parents and stakeholders are shirking their responsibilities including faith leaders of both Christianity and Islam?

The role of social media in all the foregone should not be disregarded. Juveniles have such a free access to social media through the acquisition of smart phones that the negative impact of this cannot be discounted.

Some countries such as the UK have started the process of restricting social media to above 16 and have completed the necessary legislation to that effect.

Shouldn't we start a national conversation in this regard given the rising incidents of indiscipline among the youth?

The kind of contents kids, some of them in the early stages of Senior High School (SHS), are exposed to is scary. Little wonder they put up conducts which look too distant for their ages.

When students gang up to assault their teachers because of the strict enforcement of school rules there is need to find out the root causes of the societal degeneration which is what we are calling for at this stage.