The reported involvement of Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School students raises serious questions about consent, education and the use of minors in politically contested events.
What happened at the Silver Bird Cinema in Accra last Sunday deserves scrutiny—not because students attended a film screening, but because of the reported circumstances surrounding their attendance.
According to allegations circulating publicly, students from Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School were transported to the Israeli film festival at Silver Bird Cinema after the event reportedly faced a boycott from sections of Ghanaian society over Israel's conduct in Gaza and the broader Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
If those reports are accurate, an important question follows:
Were Ghanaian schoolchildren brought to the event primarily for their educational benefit, or were they used to fill an audience gap created by a politically motivated boycott?
That question cannot simply be dismissed as political rhetoric.
It deserves answers from the schools, the event organisers and the relevant education authorities.
A Film Festival Is One Thing. Political Image-Making Is Another.
There is nothing inherently wrong with exposing students to international cinema.
Schools can legitimately organise educational trips to cultural events, film festivals, museums, exhibitions and performances.
Students should be encouraged to encounter different cultures and perspectives.
But an educational excursion becomes ethically complicated when students are allegedly used to create the appearance of public support for a politically controversial event.
That distinction is crucial.
If students attended because the schools considered the films educationally valuable, that justification should be straightforward.
If, however, students were deliberately mobilised to compensate for the absence of adult audiences because of political opposition to the festival, then the public deserves an explanation.
Children should not become demographic statistics in an adult political dispute.
The Gaza Context Cannot Simply Be Ignored
The controversy surrounding Israeli cultural events does not exist in a vacuum.
Israel's military campaign in Gaza has generated enormous international controversy and widespread allegations of violations of international humanitarian law.
Israel rejects allegations that it is committing genocide and has repeatedly argued that its military campaign is directed against Hamas rather than the Palestinian population.
The International Court of Justice is considering South Africa's genocide case against Israel. The court has issued provisional measures in the case, but it has not issued a final judgment determining that Israel has committed genocide.
That distinction matters.
People have every right to protest Israeli government policies.
They also have the right to oppose cultural events associated with the Israeli state.
Others have an equally legitimate right to attend an Israeli cultural event or engage with Israeli artists.
The democratic question is whether people—including schoolchildren—are being allowed to participate for legitimate educational reasons rather than being instrumentalised for political messaging.
What Were the Students Told?
This is one of the most important unanswered questions.
Were students told:
- what the festival represented?
- why the event was taking place?
- that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was politically controversial?
- that some Ghanaians were boycotting the festival?
- that the event was associated with the Israeli Embassy?
- what films they were going to watch?
- why their schools had chosen to attend?
Most importantly:
Were students and their parents given adequate information about the nature and purpose of the trip?
If the event was genuinely educational, these questions should not be difficult to answer.
The Schools Owe Parents an Explanation
Achimota School and Accra Girls Senior High School are educational institutions.
Their primary responsibility is to their students.
That means administrators should be able to explain the educational rationale behind activities involving students—particularly activities connected to politically sensitive international issues.
Parents entrust schools with their children.
They therefore have a legitimate interest in knowing:
Why were their children taken there?
Who invited them?
Who authorised the trip?
Who paid for transportation?
What educational objectives were attached to the visit?
Were parents informed?
Were students given the opportunity to decline?
Were school authorities aware of the political controversy surrounding the festival?
These are not unreasonable questions.
They are basic accountability questions.
The Israeli Embassy Should Also Explain Its Role
If the Israeli Embassy in Accra facilitated or encouraged the participation of the schools, it too should explain the purpose of that engagement.
Was the objective cultural diplomacy?
Was it an educational programme?
Was the embassy attempting to expose Ghanaian students to Israeli cinema and culture?
Or was the participation intended, at least partly, to ensure that the cinema did not appear empty amid a boycott?
The distinction is important.
Diplomatic missions routinely engage schools and universities around cultural programmes.
There is nothing inherently improper about that.
But cultural diplomacy becomes controversial when children are perceived to be functioning as visual evidence of political support.
If that was not the intention, the embassy can simply explain what happened.
Children Are Not Political Billboards
This is ultimately the heart of the issue.
Adults have enormous freedom to participate in political and cultural disputes.
Children have considerably less power over the environments into which adults place them.
A teenager attending a school-organised event does not necessarily endorse the government of the country hosting the event.
A student sitting in a cinema does not automatically support a military campaign.
And a photograph showing hundreds of schoolchildren at a cultural event should never be interpreted automatically as evidence that Ghanaian society supports the politics associated with that event.
That is precisely why schools need to be careful.
Students should be educated—not instrumentalised.
Cultural Exchange Should Encourage Critical Thinking
There is actually a much better way to handle controversial cultural events.
If schools wanted students to attend an Israeli film festival, they could have used the opportunity for genuine education.
Students could have been encouraged to examine:
- Israeli cinema
- Palestinian cinema
- the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
- competing narratives about the conflict
- international humanitarian law
- censorship and artistic freedom
- the role of culture in diplomacy
- propaganda and soft power
- the politics of cultural boycotts
That would have transformed a potentially controversial event into a valuable educational experience.
Students could watch the films and think critically about the politics surrounding them.
That is what education should do.
The Danger of Cultural Whitewashing
Critics of Israel's international cultural outreach often use the term “cultural whitewashing” or “artwashing” to describe efforts to emphasise cultural achievements while criticism of government policy dominates the political environment.
Israel rejects the characterisation of its cultural activities as attempts to conceal wrongdoing.
The broader concept, however, is worth examining.
Culture can be used as diplomacy.
Countries use:
- music
- films
- food
- education
- sports
- scholarships
- exhibitions
to improve their international image.
There is nothing unusual about this.
Every major state engages in some form of cultural diplomacy.
The ethical question arises when vulnerable populations—particularly children—are used to create a political image that they did not voluntarily choose to represent.
Ghanaian Authorities Should Investigate the Facts, Not the Politics
The appropriate response is not to demand punishment based on social-media allegations.
It is to establish what actually happened.
Ghana's education authorities should determine:
- Whether students from the two schools attended the festival.
- Who organised their attendance.
- Whether the Israeli Embassy facilitated the participation.
- Whether the schools authorised the excursion.
- Whether parents were informed.
- Whether attendance was compulsory.
- What educational purpose was documented.
- Who funded transportation and other costs.
- Whether students were exposed to political messaging.
- Whether school policies governing excursions and external organisations were followed.
These questions can be answered without turning the issue into another ideological battle.
Do Not Silence the Students' Voices
There is another dimension that deserves consideration.
If students were present, their own experiences should be heard.
What did they think they were attending?
Did they understand why the event was controversial?
Did they feel pressured to attend?
Did they enjoy the films?
Were they given opportunities to ask questions?
Did anyone explain the political context?
Did the experience broaden their understanding of another culture?
Or did they simply become an audience transported into a cinema for an event whose wider political significance they were not expected to understand?
Those answers would be far more revealing than competing accusations on social media.
The Principle Should Apply to Everyone
This issue should not be framed as:
Israel versus Palestine.
It should also not become:
Ghana versus Israel.
The underlying principle is much broader.
If a foreign government organises a controversial cultural event in Ghana, Ghanaian schools should not be used as instruments of political messaging.
That principle should apply whether the foreign government is Israel, Britain, the United States, China, Russia, Iran or any other country.
Children deserve the same protection regardless of which flag is involved.
If It Was Education, Say So
There is a very simple way to resolve much of the controversy.
The schools can explain.
If students were invited because the films had educational value, say so.
If the trip was part of an existing cultural-exchange programme, explain it.
If parents approved the excursion, provide the relevant information.
If students attended voluntarily, clarify that.
If the embassy facilitated transportation or tickets, disclose that.
Transparency would settle many of the questions.
But silence creates suspicion.
The Larger Lesson
Ghana is a democracy.
People have the right to protest.
People have the right to boycott.
People have the right to attend cultural events.
Foreign embassies have the right to conduct legitimate cultural diplomacy.
Schools have the right to expose students to international cultures.
But none of these rights should override the basic responsibility to protect children from being turned into political instruments.
If the students went to the Israeli film festival because educators genuinely believed it would enrich their understanding of cinema and culture, then the schools should be able to demonstrate that educational purpose.
If they were instead brought in principally to create an audience after adults boycotted the event, that raises a completely different ethical question.
And if the latter is true, the problem is not simply the politics of Israel and Palestine.
It is the use of schoolchildren to manufacture an image of public acceptance.
That deserves scrutiny.
Not because the children did anything wrong.
They didn't.
The responsibility lies entirely with the adults who organised, authorised and facilitated their participation.
Children should be introduced to the world, not recruited to represent it.
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