Abstract:
Indiscipline in schools is a major concern of parents, teachers, students and all
those who are involved in the education of the child. The spate of indiscipline in schools,
in the home, at work places and on the roads is a concern of everybody in Ghana. The
campaign against indiscipline by the vice-president of Ghana goes to confirm that there is indiscipline in the country.
The study investigated the perceptions of teachers and students on indiscipline in
Senior Secondary Schools with Sunyani Secondary School as a case study. Thus the
research design was to find out the views of students and teachers of Sunyani Secondary School on the state of discipline in the school. Two hundred and sixteen students out of the student population of 1440 made up the students' sample for the research whilst 36 teachers were sampled out of the 64 teacher population. The sample for the students was drawn through a random sampling technique and the sample for each class was distributed according to programme of study and the number of students in each department. On the other hand, purposive sampling was used to select the teachers by picking those who hold position in the school as house masters, heads of departments guidance and counseling coordinators and assistant head masters.
The instrument for the study was a questionnaire for both the teacher and student
respondents. An item by item analysis of data was made using frequencies and
percentages. It was found from the study that indiscipline is really on the increase and
the most common forms of indiscipline in the school were stealing, cheating in
examinations, sexual misconduct and going out of school without permission, and these
also occurred often in the school. With acts of indiscipline there were divergent views. The teachers and students did not share similar views on the wearing of unapproved
dresses; when the teachers thought it was a serious problem, the students thought
otherwise.
The study again revealed that school rules did not have much influence on the
students so as to cause indiscipline in the school. The study rather found that there was
the need for external control in ensuring discipline in the school. The respondents
preferred corrective measures to punitive measures in ensuring discipline. It is better to
reward students and counsel offending students rather than punish them. A suggested
means of ensuring discipline in the Sunyani Secondary School, which is quite close to the Sunyani town, is the fencing of the school. Again the study revealed the need to invite parents of wrong doers to meet the headmaster for discussions, and for strengthening the guidance and counseling department to work more effectively.
