{"id":95867,"date":"2015-03-03T05:30:31","date_gmt":"2015-03-03T05:30:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=95867"},"modified":"2015-03-03T10:27:14","modified_gmt":"2015-03-03T10:27:14","slug":"gnat-backs-calls-for-compulsory-morning-devotions-for-all-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=95867","title":{"rendered":"GNAT backs calls for compulsory morning devotions for all students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Ghana National Association of Teachers has backed calls by the Ghana Education Service for the <span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/2015\/02\/27\/all-students-must-attend-morning-devotion-ges\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>compulsory attendance to morning<\/strong><\/a><\/span> devotion sessions by students in mission secondary schools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;dmsWPOwOrGDAJIwO0J4Vkyb1TNSivzMU&#8221;]The association contends that the rule, if not applied to all students may lead to confusion in the schools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">After <a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/2015\/02\/20\/photos-muslims-in-western-region-demonstrate-over-discrimination\/#sthash.VoKLSnC1.dpbs\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong>Muslims in the Western Region<\/strong><\/span><\/a> and the Muslim <a href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/2015\/02\/20\/dont-force-muslim-students-to-worship-in-churches-muslim-mps\/#sthash.QBGH5DDV.dpbs\" target=\"_blank\"><span style=\"color: #666699;\"><strong>Members of Parliament<\/strong><\/span><\/a> in different ways protested against making their students attend such functions in schools, the GES served notice that all students, including Muslims would still have to attend if the schools they attended required them to do so.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">But the call was again\u00a0<span style=\"color: #666699;\"><a style=\"color: #666699;\" href=\"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/2015\/03\/01\/we-wont-attend-devotion-muslims-reject-ges-directive\/#sthash.Lv7cG6pg.dpbs\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>rejected by the Ghana Muslim Student\u2019s Union<\/strong><\/a><\/span> who asserted that the directive violated their basic human right.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Speaking to <strong>Citi News<\/strong> the Deputy General Secretary of GNAT Thomas Baafi stated that the morning devotion was not intended to convert students to other religions.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThe common practice has been that when you go for the assembly you pray. And sometimes there is a word of exhortation. After that announcements are given. The whole idea is not to try and convert somebody to another religion,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">He argued that if morning devotions were made optional for students, the situation will breed confusion in the schools.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cIf we continue to have this by other sectors of religion also insist how is the compound going to be. There is going to be a lot of confusion,\u201d he stated.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">&#8211;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">By: Franklin Badu Jnr\/citifmonline.com\/Ghana<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Ghana National Association of Teachers has backed calls by the Ghana Education Service for the compulsory attendance to morning devotion sessions by students in mission secondary schools. [contextly_sidebar id=&#8221;dmsWPOwOrGDAJIwO0J4Vkyb1TNSivzMU&#8221;]The association contends that the rule, if not applied to all students may lead to confusion in the schools. After Muslims in the Western Region and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":95869,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[43,38],"class_list":["post-95867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-foresight-medical-center","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=95867"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95867\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/95869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=95867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=95867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=95867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}