General News of Monday, 12 June 2006

Source: Public Agenda

More SSS students engage in campus sex

Morality among students of second cycle institutions in some parts of the country has sunk so low that some students now find it normal to engage in sexual activities on campus.

The latest school on the list of student indiscipline is the Asakraka Secondary School in the Okwahu South District of the Eastern Region, where it has been found that students had laid permanent beds in the bus to engage in ?rotational? sex with girls from their own school and some from nearby schools.

In April this year, the school?s Disciplinary Committee dismissed six final year students for various offences including breaking of bounds, attacking teachers and unruly behaviour among others.

The Okwahu South District Director of Education, Mr Nii Okaija Dinsey said in April this year when he visited the school to acquaint himself with the disciplinary cases, he learnt that some unruly students had laid permanent beds in the bush, on which they had rotational sex.

He said he personally went to the site and saw the beds, but plans to besiege the students and arrest them failed when some one leaked the information to them. The students stealthily removed the beds, making it difficult for the authorities to identify them.

It would be recalled that in February this year, ten female students of the Mpraeso Secondary School, also in the Okwahu District were dismissed for engaging in gang sex. Prior to their dismissal, the girls had gone to the Moonlight Hotel at Bepong, a town near Mpraeso on Valentine?s Day ,where they allegedly had sex with five males, initially thought to be Nigerian drug dealers.

But subsequent investigations have revealed that the five males were students of St. Peter?s Secondary School at Nkwatia, also in the Okwahu South District.

Latest developments indicate that the girls had their dismissals converted to withdrawals to enable them take part in the just ended West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examination.

Commenting on the issue, Mr Dinsey said a committee set up to investigate the incident deemed it necessary ?to give it a human face.? According to him, the girls admitted that they were guilty and pleaded to be dealt with leniently. He noted that he students were made to satisfy certain conditions in order to merit the conversion of their dismissals into withdrawals.

The conditions were that they would settle all arrears in respect of fees and be accompanied by parents and guardians to come and take their final exams at school.

Mr Dinsey further revealed that during the committee hearings. It was established that the ten girls went to the hotel in two batches of five in the company of two male students who acted as escorts. The boys were subsequently withdrawn.