Boarders to pay for properties destroyed

Boarding students of the Nkwanta Senior High School in the Volta Region are to pay for the properties they destroyed in the school last Monday night, by some rampaging students.

Nkwanta-South Municipal Security Council (MUSEC), which took that decision after a crunch meeting yesterday, also directed that the school should be reopened on Monday, November 5.

The school was closed down temporarily following massive destruction of school properties by some students of the school who went on a demonstration last Monday night.

Among the properties destroyed are 26 motorbikes belonging to the teachers, five vehicles, including a pick-up, two school buses, a tipper truck and a car belonging to the Nkwanta

Divisional Police Commander.

The rampaging students also damaged three staff bungalows, the school’s water systems and ECG meters, leading to a power outage and the cessation of water supply to the school.

In addition, whiteboards in the classrooms were destroyed by the students.

In the wake of the tensed atmosphere in the school MUSEC ordered that the school should be closed down temporarily last Tuesday.

MUSEC’s directive

Following a stakeholders’ meeting to further assess the situation at hand, MUSEC asked that immediate steps ought to be taken to restore facilities in the school for academic work to begin on Monday.

The Nkwanta-South Municipal Director of Education, Mr Stephen Tsuaitorfe, who confirmed MUSEC’s decision to the Daily Graphic yesterday in a telephone interview, said work had begun to restore utilities and other facilities in the school.

“I can confirm to you that plumbers have started working to restore the main pipeline that was destroyed by the students. Arrangements have also been made for the workers of the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) to go to the school and restore the lightning systems.

“The Municipal Chief Executive (MCE), Mr John Tasun, led a team to go round the school after which he also asked for the marker boards to be replaced in the classrooms for academic work to begin by next week Monday,” he said.

Mr Tsuaitorfe added that MUSEC’s decision to make the students pay for the properties they destroyed was to serve as a deterrent to others.

Headmaster

Meanwhile, the headmaster of the school, Mr Paul Boafo Nyarko, told the Daily Graphic in an interview that a valuation exercise was ongoing to ascertain the actual cost of the damage caused by the students.

He said it was after the valuation exercise was completed that the school’s management would know how much each student would be asked to pay.
Touching on the Monday, November 5 reopening date decided by MUSEC, he said “ unless we are able to restore utilities on campus and put in place other facilities, we cannot reopen.”

Discipline

Mr Nyarko condemned the action of the students, stressing that there was no way the school authorities would allow students to concentrate on the use of mobile phones instead of their books.

“The Ghana Education Service (GES) has laws that clearly frown on the use of mobile phones by students in senior high schools. Our school is not an island so we cannot allow the students to break the laws,” he stressed.

He said the management of the school was working with the Parent Teachers Association (PTA) to address the outstanding issues.