Teacher allegedly forces pupils to swear by water deity over his missing phone

A teacher at St. Paul’s Anglican Basic School at Wenchi-Jensoso in the Bono Region has allegedly forced his pupils to swear by a water deity over the theft of his mobile phone.

The teacher who suspected one of the pupils had stolen his phone gave them an egg and asked them to invoke the deity to prove their innocence.

This has sparked outrage among their parents.

According to a disturbed parent, she got to know of the incident after her children struggled to sleep at night due to fear.

“When I came home at 10 pm, they[children] told me they couldn’t sleep because a teacher made them swear an oath to a deity at school. When I questioned them further, they revealed to me that the teacher lost his mobile on Friday, and so he asked them to take the oath to prove their innocence. But if they are guilty, the deity will inflict punishment on them.

“This shocked me because the school is a Bible-believing mission school, so the teacher’s action sounded strange to me, so we went to the school to seek clarification,” the parent said.

Along with other parents, she said that she reported the incident to the school’s administration, and when the teacher was questioned, he admitted the students’ statements.

The teacher said he did it to scare the students after misplacing his phone.

Meanwhile, the Wenchi Municipal Directorate of the Ghana Education Service (GES) has launched an investigation into the matter.

David Baffoe, the Public Relations Officer of the directorate, said if the teacher is found guilty, he would be sanctioned accordingly.

“We started the investigations…and we will continue today so that we can establish the facts on the whole matter so that we can communicate appropriately to the public.

“We are there to make sure that we get the truth from the matter, and if the teacher is found culpable, we will use the established code of conduct against him,” he said.