Regional News of Tuesday, 26 October 2004

Source: GNA

SSS closed down for indiscipline

Techiman (B/A), Oct. 26, GNA - All the 1,750 students of the Techiman Secondary School (TESS) in Brong-Ahafo Region were on Monday sent home following the indefinite closure of the school by its authorities.

This followed a demonstration embarked upon by a section of the Form Three students in protest against the de-boardinazation of Master Collins Adu, an SSS 3 A student, by the schools disciplinary committee on October 22.

In the process of the demonstration, two female students were injured and had to be rushed to the Techiman Holy Family Hospital and were treated and discharged, following an attack on the girls' dormitory at about 9.30 pm.

The demonstrators mounted road blocks with dual-desks and blocks on all roads of the school premises and destroyed both electric cables and made away with quantities of groundnut paste and sugar in the school kitchen.

They also attacked both houses of the Senior Housemaster Mr. Joseph Asirifi and the housemistress Madam Cecilia Pogrebah, making away with 45 life fowls and destroyed the hen coop.

The demonstrators vandalized the Senior Housemaster's office and destroyed all files set fire to some of them.

Mr. Kwame Antwi-Bosiako, Headmaster of the school made these known when officials from the District Office of the Ghana Education Service led by Mr. Robert Kofi Donkor, an Assistant Director in-charge of Human Resources, the Municipal Co-ordinating Director of the Techiman Municipal Assembly Mr. David D. Yaro, the Brong Ahafo Deputy Regional Police Commander, Mr. Hennery Dadzie, the Parent-Teacher Association (PTA) and the Techiman traditional council, led by Nana Apeteng Fosu Gyeabour, Bamuhene and Hansuahene visited the school to assess the situation there.

Mr. Antwi-Boasiako said, the student (Collins Adu), who was the center of the controversy was alleged to have used a sponge to whip a form one student after several warnings against such behaviour by a disciplinary committee of the school.

He was consequently served with a letter of de-boardinization.