Tempane SHS: First years return Monday after shutdown over ‘hunger strike’

The Tempane Senior High School will be re-opened to first years on Monday, the Chief Executive, Paul Abugre Azumah has confirmed.

He, however, added that a decision will be taken on when to allow the second and third-year students to return to the school in the coming days.

The school was yesterday [Tuesday] closed down on the orders of the DCE, following a hunger strike by students in solidarity with their headmaster who was suspended for allowing then national organizer aspirant of the NDC, Joshua Akamba to engage in a political activity at the school.

It is still unclear whether the head teacher will return to the school.

But in an interview with Citi News, Mr. Abugre Azumah said the decision to reopen the school was to allow the students to prepare for their end-of-term examinations.

“The form ones have been asked to come back on Monday to continue with academic work whilst we look into the case. The continuing students, forms two and three, will also come later, so that’s the situation. We will meet and take a decision, we want them to come and write their exams before they vacate,” he said.

He said the closure of the school was done as a precautionary measure to prevent the destruction of properties.

“We got information this morning from the Assistant Headmaster that some students had refused to eat. They had refused to write exams and were preventing juniors from writing exams so after talking to them for about four hours, we realized that when we make them stay overnight, they might take advantage of the situation and destroy properties so stakeholders came together and we decided that in order to avoid any destruction of properties in the night, they should go home.”

The headmaster, Ndegu Amolale, was suspended by the Ghana Education Service for allowing the National Organizer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Joshua Akamba to campaign in the school against government’s Free SHS.

Joshua Akamba in a video that went viral on social media told some students of Tempane Senior High School to hoot at President Nana Addo over the infestation of bedbugs in their dormitories.

Akamba attributed the bedbug problem to congestion occasioned by the free SHS programme. The headmaster was then suspended because GES said its rules do not allow any kind of politics in basic and secondary schools.

Reinstate suspended Tempane SHS head

Some critics had called on the government to reinstate the suspended headmaster immediately.

Former President John Dramani Mahama recently also lambasted government over the suspension, describing it as wrong.

“Who went into schools more than somebody? We were in government, and there was somebody he was always in the schools and playing politics and yet we never sacked any headmaster, we never sacked any teacher because you have gone into a school.

“Then one of our aspirants for a certain position goes to a school, and the students show him how bedbugs have chewed them and had discourse with them. Then you suspend the headmaster, and you say he should handover, and you are investigating him. Investigating him for what?”

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By: Farida Yusif | citinewsroom.com | Ghana

Follow @RidaYusif

The post Tempane SHS: First years return Monday after shutdown over ‘hunger strike’ appeared first on Citi Newsroom.

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