Bats invade school in North Tongu

Students and teachers of the Roman Catholic Basic School in Juapong in the North Tongu District of the Volta Region are living in fear of catching the deadly Ebola virus from bats that have invaded the school.

Bats have been said to be one of the mammals that can transmit the Ebola disease, which has killed thousands in West Africa.

Though not proven to be the Ebola-transmitting species, the bats are impeding teaching and learning with their presence, TV3’s Daniel Lartey reports.

“The bats disturb us and they move about even when we are in class,” one of the students told our reporter.

“Sometimes, the faeces of the bats spread in the class even when we are learning,” another student said.

A teacher at the school, Patience Dzifa, narrated an incident when the ceiling dropped on another teacher as a result of the weight of the bats. Therefore, teachers have preferred to sit outside rather than in their offices to prepare lesson notes.

Assistant Headteacher of the Roman Catholic School Vincent Tetteh told our reporter that the District Education Director directed them to pull down the ceiling in order to ward off the mammals.

“We tried removing the ceiling. We did it but it was to no avail.”

But the District Chief Executive Officer, Delphia Fafa Agbai, said the incident has not been formally brought to her notice.

“District Assembly cannot get up today and go there and do anything,” she said.

She added that there is no budget allocated for such issue and if for anything at all, that will be done in 2015 after it is captured in the District's budget.

Nonetheless, she disclosed that the people of Juapong attribute superstition to it and have asked the Assembly not to do anything about the bats.

But some of the students have expressed unhappiness and say they dread going to school sometimes especially in a period of Ebola rampage in West Africa.