Akim Oda Junior Secondary Students sacked

Six final-year students of Akim Oda Wesley Methodist Junior Secondary School (JSS) who smeared their school building with human excreta after they were reprimanded for drinking alcohol during classes have been expelled.

Keegan Amaniampong, Godfried Asiedu, Wisdom Klutse, Richard Ntiamoah, Emmanuel Aning, and Edward Asare were alleged to have used catapults to stone their teachers. They also destroyed a number of seedlings in the school garden and other school property.

Throwing more light on the incident, the Assistant Headteacher, Miss Agnes Gyan, told the Ghana News Agency on Thursday that on October 24, while classes were in session, the students were caught drinking palm wine from containers hidden under their desks.

She said that, after all the teachers had deliberated on the issue, it was decided that the students should be suspended for three weeks. Miss Gyan said no sooner had the students been served with the suspension letters than they went on the rampage, throwing stones at their teachers and destroying seedlings in the school garden. They later returned in the night and smeared the school block with faeces, she added.

Miss Gyan said when the case was reported to the Birim South District Director of Education, Ms Felicia Duku, she ordered that the students should be withdrawn from the school. In a letter to their parents, the Director requested them to pay 25,250 cedis each to the school authorities in respect of property destroyed.

The letter reminded the parents that their wards would be permitted to write their final Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) which starts in April, next year, on condition that they pay the amount. The children will also have to sign an undertaking to comport themselves throughout the duration of the examination. The letter warned that court action would be taken against the students if they failed to pay for the damage caused to property. Meanwhile, the assembly member for the area, Nana Abankwah, the unit committee chairman, Nana Ahenkan Kakari Afari, and the Reverend Thomas Christian Baffoe, Superintendent Minister of the Akim Oda St. Luke Methodist Church, addressed the students and urged them to maintain discipline in the school.