A final-year student at Jachie Pramso Senior High School in the Bosomtwe District of the Ashanti Region is nursing bruises after she was reportedly caned by the school’s headmaster for offering her jacket to a fellow student.
Mary Amoako, 19, a General Arts student, says she was punished for helping a male classmate who had been reprimanded for not wearing his school uniform.
According to Mary, the headmaster had ordered the male student to remove his shirt and return to the dormitory half-naked to change into the appropriate uniform. After the boy’s shirt was confiscated and the headmaster left the area, Mary said she felt compelled to help him maintain his dignity and stay warm, so she gave him her jacket to wear.
Moments later, the headmaster reportedly spotted the boy heading toward the dormitory in the jacket. Upon discovering that Mary had lent it to him, he allegedly summoned her and administered several lashes on her back, resulting in visible bruises.
Mary and some of her classmates are calling the punishment excessive and unjust, especially as it was meted out for what they describe as an act of compassion.
The incident has sparked conversations within the school community and beyond, with some questioning the appropriateness of corporal punishment in schools, particularly under such circumstances.
Neither the headmaster nor the school authorities have publicly commented on the incident as of the time of this report.
