Ghana’s secondary schools have guidelines on sexual harassment, but weak implementation, limited training and inadequate safeguarding structures continue to leave students vulnerable, according to Africa Education Watch researcherSahadatu Ali.

Sahadatu said a recent study byEducation Watch found a significant gap between awareness of Ghana Education Service guidelines among school authorities and their understanding among teachers and students.

She was speaking on the Asaase Breakfast Show on Friday (21 August) during a discussion about the handling of a case involving a 14-year-old student who was allegedly sexually abused at the Bolgatanga Girls SHS.

The GES introduced guidelines on sexual harassment in secondary schools in 2024, but Sahadatu said the existence of the guidelines did not necessarily mean schools had systems capable of implementing them effectively.

“Though awareness of the guideline is very high amongst people in authority,” she said, awareness among teachers and students remained low.

According to Sahadatu, school heads, sexual harassment committees and designated safe-space personnel may have copies of the guidelines, but that knowledge does not consistently reach the wider school community.

She said some schools had conducted sensitisation programmes after establishing sexual harassment committees, but questioned whether such awareness efforts were being sustained.

Sahadatu also raised concerns about training for personnel responsible for safeguarding students.

She said the safe-space personnel were trained when the guidelines were introduced but that there had not been refresher training, despite teacher turnover in schools.

“What happens to new teachers that have come on board?” she asked.

She said Education Watch’s findings showed low awareness among students and other school staff, pointing to a need for continuous training rather than one-off sensitisation.

Sahadatu said the case involving the 14-year-old also raised questions about how schools respond when a student first reports an alleged incident.

The student reportedly identified one alleged perpetrator before another incident was subsequently reported.

Sahadatu said an investigation should establish the chronology of the reports and determine what measures the school took after the first disclosure to prevent another incident.

“If indeed she reported one before the other and then the second one eventually happened, it means that there’s a problem,” she said.

She described this as a potential gap in the school’s safeguarding system.

Sahadatu also called for stronger scrutiny of non-teaching personnel who have direct access to students.

She said safeguarding should not focus only on teachers, arguing that security guards, cleaners, kitchen staff and other workers also come into regular contact with children.

“One of our recommendations is that, just as we do in the security services, there should be some basic background checks when we are hiring people into our school,” she said.

Sahadatu said such checks should help establish whether individuals being employed to work around children had a history that should prevent them from having access to students.

She also argued that the disciplinary finding against the 14-year-old should be reviewed and removed from her record.

She said that even if the student ultimately transferred to another school, the finding could remain on her file and potentially affect her in future.

“Even if she’s not going to go back to the same school environment, it still needs to be expunged from her file,” she said.

Sahadatu said the student should receive medical care, psychological support and stronger parental involvement.

She also stressed the need for systems to ensure that children with conditions requiring medication do not stop taking their medication while at school.

She questioned whether existing guidance and counselling structures had the specialised skills needed to support a student with autism who had experienced trauma.

Education psychologist Professor Eric Anane, who also participated in the discussion, similarly warned that Ghana’s school system was not sufficiently prepared to provide comprehensive support to children facing such situations.

He said the problem extended beyond the individual case and reflected broader weaknesses in school safeguarding.

Prof Anane called for stronger supervision by the Ghana Education Service and said regional education authorities should be able to act without waiting for directives from the education minister.

Sahadatu said the case should therefore be viewed not only through the lens of the alleged criminal acts but also in terms of whether institutional safeguards were functioning as intended.

She said the key questions for investigators included what happened after the first disclosure, what safeguards were put in place, whether alleged perpetrators continued to have access to students and whether school authorities followed existing safeguarding procedures.

The case, she said, highlighted the need to move beyond having policies on paper to ensuring that schools have the structures, training and personnel required to implement them.

Prof Anane agreed that Ghana needed stronger child-centred and disability-inclusive safeguarding systems.

He said children should be able to learn in environments where they are protected from abuse, stigma and further trauma.

“Safe space means every child can go about learning and doing all that they can do and then go and thrive within the environment that we have provided,” he said.