Regional Education Office averts students' demonstration

Bekwai (Ash), May 27, GNA - The timely intervention of some officers from the Ashanti Regional Education Office averted a demonstration by students of Asante Bekwai Wesley High School in protest against alleged encroachment on the school by the traditional council.

It took more than one hour for Mr. Richard Owusu Agyemang, the Regional Public Relations Officer of the Educational Directorate, to persuade the students to abandon the planned demonstration.

The students with red bands around their wrists had arranged for a brass band, prepared placards and were organizing to take to the streets when the officer arrived in the school. In their prepared petition signed by the Students Representative Council (SRC) Secretary, Richmond Gaisie and copied to Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, Ashanti Regional Director of Education, Ashanti Regional Lands Officer and the Asante Bekwai Municipal Chief Executive, the students said the school was absorbed into the public system in 2001. They said the school has since then undergone infrastructure improvement including the construction of classrooms, dormitories and a multi-purpose dinning hall which is in progress. After a portion of the school land had been prepared for the construction of a football field, the students alleged that, one Nana Kodie, who they claimed to be the Dumfuorhene of Asante Bekwai, erected some pillars on the developed football field saying the land had been allocated to some private estate developers. The students alleged that Nana Kodie boasted the demarcation of the land was directed by the Asante Bekwai Traditional Council. The petition said the action of the traditional council was illegal, unacceptable and a serious threat to the development of education in the area.

The students claimed that several interventions by the school authorities and the Board of Governors to claim back the land had proved unsuccessful. The aggrieved students appealed to the Asantehene to intervene and dissuade the traditional council from selling the school lands to private developers.