Rioting SHS Students In Northern Region Dismissed

Alhai M. Haroun, GES

The Northern Regional Director of the Ghana Education Service (GES), Alhaji Mohammed Haroun “Cambodia” has disclosed that all students of the three Senior High Schools in the region who went on destructive rampage recently have been dismissed. 

According to him, any student who would want to come back to their respective schools would have to sign a bond to be of good behaviour and also be made to pay for every single property they destroyed in the cause of the riots. 

“In this situation we cannot exempt any student so the damage is going to be costed and the students will have to pay before they are readmitted into the schools. So for these schools now all the students stand dismissed until reopen of the school where they will come back with their parents to sign bonds to be of good behavior and then their parents will witness, and then they will have to pay for the damages caused before they are readmitted into the schools”.

Speaking in an interview with Savannahnews, Alhaji Haroun also directed all heads of Senior High Schools in the region to fully enforce the existing rules and regulations in order to restrain disobedient students from taking the laws into their own hands.  

According to him, the school authorities must ensure that all the students become disciplined, law abiding and study hard, and that those who were not ready to respect and submit to the rules and regulations must be sacked and forced out of the school. 

This directive follows untenable rioting by students of Salaga TI Ahmadiya, Karaga and Nalerigu Senior High Schools a last week, which led to unimaginable destruction to school properties. All the three Senior High Schools have since been closed down indefinitely after the clashes between the students and school authorities. About 31 of the rioting students are reported to have been arrested so far with all of them being students from the Nalerigu SHS.

Alhaji Haroun described it as “highly unacceptable” for the students to go on rampage and cause such a huge destruction to school properties without any reasonable cause.

Dismissed SHS Students Carrying Their Belongings Home

He lamented that the GES could not comprehend why the students should demonstrate such a level of disrespect and gross indiscipline to their authorities. What seems to disturb the Regional GES Boss is the fact that the students in the region at the Basic and Second Cycle continue to perform abysmally in spite of the huge investment and support being given by the government. 

However, the District Director of the GES for East Mamprusi, Hajia Nafisah Dauda also in an interview with DNA described the conduct of the students of the Nalerigu SHS as unacceptable and highly criminal. 

She asserted that the students went on rampage after the headmaster had told them to postpone an entertainment jam until examination was over. The students organized themselves and disconnected all the lights on campus and attacked the headmaster’s bungalow with pebbles and perforated the roof. 

The headmaster she noted had to run through the bush to the Gambaga Police Station for protection. The angry students also destroyed the school bus, the Mahindra pickup the headmaster is using also had its windscreen destroyed, a KIA truck recently donated by the Parents Teachers Association was also damaged, a packed wooden truck of the school popularly known as “Bone Shaker” also had the windscreen damaged, another school pickup also damaged and over 91 flat screen computers and laptops were also stolen from the newly built Computer library. 

According to Hajia Nafisah Dauda, she was totally devastated and in deep tears when she saw some of the students wailing, with others being attacked by asthma and some also collapsing, when she went with the police to close down the Nalerigu SHS at the directive of the Regional director.

“I am a mother and I could not take it at all. Some of the students were innocent but they were all affected and there was nothing anybody could do”.

She said that even though all the students had been chased away, the police were still manning the school campus. 

In the case of Karaga SHS, the students went on rampage and attacked school authorities for not allowing the use of mobile phones in the school. They ended up destroying properties of the school.

And in the case of the Salaga T.I Ahmadiya SHS the students complained that they were being restrained from wearing slippers into classes and exams halls. The school authorities detected that most of the students during exams write answers on their slippers and cheat the system. They also went on serious demonstration with support from some community members and caused serious damage to properties including the pulling down of the school fence wall.