Final year students of the Zabzugu Senior High School in the Northern region are writing their West African Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination under heavy security after they went on rampage Tuesday night, launching a sporadic attack on teachers and clashed with local taskforce and armed police officers who came to provide security to the staff.
The incident occurred after tensions, between the teachers and candidates, over the constant refusal of the teachers to allow the students cheat in the ongoing examination, spiralled out of control.
A staff of the school told Starr News that the students numbering over 60, mostly boys, sparked the protest after another teacher instructed the students to wear school uniforms before attending the night preps. Others who were already at preps in unprescribed attires were asked to walk out.
“The students were already angry at the teachers for not allowing them to engage in examination malpractice and they had warned to attack us on their last paper day, so yesterday, one teacher by name spider told some of the students who were in preps to leave the classrooms and go and dress well at the dormitory but the students refused and started switching off the lights and attacked the teachers,” Alhassan Inusah, a staff of the school who spoke from his hideout, explained the violence.
According to him, the students held the teachers under attack for many minutes with stones and sticks and later marched to shut down their bungalows after some of them managed to flee from the fury of the raging candidates.
The teachers had initially attempted to scare the students when they began the noisy protest but were forced to call the police in Zabzugu and Tatale when the students overpowered the community watchdog members who came to try to break the protesters.
Many items were destroyed when the students invaded the teacher’s quarters. School properties including TV sets, tables, computers, window glasses were also damaged when they stormed the staff common room.
They also disconnected utility lines to the kitchen, ravaged food items and teaching materials at the general office.
Rioting continued until a reinforcement arrived from Yendi after the students again allegedly chased away the police officers from Zabzugu and Tatale. They police fired copious warning shots and the students responded with stones until a water cannon arrived to confront the violence.
“They stoned the police from the two districts until the commander asked his men to run away and they went and brought reinforcement from Yendi, so it was the Yendi police who stopped them, and the police are still in the school with the vehicle they use to spray water on people.”
The teachers have all abandoned the school refusing to invigilate the ongoing exam and said they would return after the students have left the school campus.
The students are therefore being invigilated by heavy police officers who are to maintain presence in the school till Friday when the students finish writing the exams.
Starr News checks revealed the chairman of the school’s Parent Teachers Association, District Chief Executive and local education authorities are currently in the school trying to resolve the matter to avoid further escalation.
Source: Ghana/Starrfmonline.com/103.5FM/Eliasu Tanko
