Achimota/Rasta Saga: Vigilantly Monitor Your Children In School - Prof. Joseph Osafo To Rasta Parents

Head of Psychology at the University of Ghana, Professor Joseph Osafo, has advised parents of the Rastafarian students of the Achimota school to vigilantly monitor their children as they go to the school.

Speaking on Peace FM's 'Kokrokoo' programme, Professor Joseph Osafo explained that, even though the students have won their court case to go to the Achimota school, they however will have some psychological effects resulting from their lawful action against the school.

He noted that the students may feel stigmatized on campus and so called on their parents to draw more closer to them, encouraging and helping them to grow tougher skin to ridicules and stigma that may potentially characterize their stay in the school.

"Labels create what we call stigma . . . The default of our mind is negativity. The mind is wired to be negative. That's how it is. So, when somebody, who doesn't know you, meets you; that default state is there. What you don't want to do is to act in a way that will validate what is in there," he said, adding "if the child's parents don't monitor him well, he may live the labels. In other words, he will act in consonance to the labels . . . The child can feel very much stigmatized even at the classroom".

He advised the students to undergo pyschological therapy in school.