School kids on rampage - Embark on demo, hurl stones at GES staff, clash with police

PUPILS AND students of Sandema Preparatory Primary/Junior Secondary School in the Builsa District last Tuesday took to the streets of the town to protest against the transfer of their headmaster, Mr. Francis Ahmed Anayem. The students’ action, The Chronicle learnt, was an expression of their disapproval of the headmaster’s transfer considering the enormous contributions Mr. Anayem had made towards the progress of the school and the development of education in the District as a whole.

The pupils and students without a leader marched to the District Education Office chanting war songs and brandishing placards some of which bore the inscriptions ‘Our golden pride is missing’, ‘we are searching for our missing golden headmaster’ and ‘Mr. Francis is a wonderful headmaster’ among others.

After waiting for a while at the offices of GES without being granted audience because they could not produce leaders of the demonstration, the students, according to the paper’s source, started throwing stones at the office and that called for the intervention of the police.

The source explained that when they were asked to disperse, the children turned and vented their anger on the police, but considering their ages, the officers used sticks to disperse them, which however proved difficult.

But some eyewitnesses who spoke to The Chronicle described the police action as “appalling”. Two people, Mr. John Ayiboh and Mr. Hamidu Yahaya (a.k.a. Rasta), who described the police’s action as too harsh on the children, said they intervened but were arrested and detained for obstructing justice.

When contacted, the District Crime Officer, D/S Douglas Mainu confirmed the incident but explained that it was reported that Rasta held one of the police officers, giving one of the school girls the chance and impetus to slap the officer. He said investigation was still ongoing.

Meanwhile, it has been rumoured that the transfers of Mr. Anayem, who is the Builsa North Constituency Deputy Treasurer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), and a few others were politically motivated, pointing accusing fingers at the District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr. Thomas Kofi Alonsi.

Mr. Anayem told the paper that he was not bothered about his transfer but was worried by the way and manner in which it was done, and submitted to the rumours.

When reached, Mr. Alonsi debunked the rumours and emphasized that as far as he was concerned, the transfers were done in the interest of the development of education in the district and not for any political reasons.

He explained that a taskforce was set up by the District Education Oversight Committee (DEOC) to investigate the factors militating against the development of education in the Builsa District.

The taskforce, according to him, identified a number of problems and realized there was an imbalance in the posting of teachers, indicating that while some schools were over-staffed, others had skeletal staff.

He added that absenteeism, lateness and drunkenness were also identified as some of the militating factors confronting the development of education in the District.

Mr. Alonsi told the paper that the DEOC at its meeting early this year, had a look at the recommendations of the taskforce and other reports and agreed that there was the need to move teachers around.

The Committee, he said, decided among other things to move people because the Committee thought those teachers and headmasters who had stayed in the same schools for over eight years had become so acquainted with pupils, students and parents that they hardly discharge their professional duties.

The move was also a general internal reshuffle to correct the imbalance of teacher-pupil ratio between north and south of the district and that even all the circuit supervisors in the district had been reshuffled.

The DCE disclosed that the taskforce also recommended that the District Human Resource Development Officer of GES should be reassigned for another schedule and replaced for obvious reasons, which had also been done.

He could not therefore understand why some people were giving the transfers political connotations. He advised such people to desist from politicizing issues and contribute their quota towards the development of the district instead of engaging in unconstructive criticisms.

The Builsa District Director of Education, Mr. Aloysius A. Abem, also speaking to journalists disclosed that the Ghana Education Service (GES) has a policy that at least every six years, teachers should be transferred.

He frowned on the students’ behaviour, indicating that it was not proper for children at those ages to resort to violent demonstrations.