Greater Height school closed down after Teachers and Management fight

The Greater Height International School in Tamale has been closed down after fighting broke out between teachers and management on Tuesday over refusal of teachers to write an internal Maths and English examinations which was to decide their fate in the school.

Parents were called in to take home their children after management and teachers violently clashed following the decision of the headmaster, Mr. Daniel Jokoto to expel the school welfare committee chairman, Abubakari Sulemana for inciting his colleagues to defy orders of school authorities.

Management had told teachers anyone who failed the internal examinations in both English and Maths subjects were to be sacked angering there teachers who then decided not write the test.

Speaking to Kasapa News, the Welfare Committee Chairman said he had gone to the headmaster’s office to present a petition about concerns of the teachers.

“We just wanted to know who is setting the questions because we are all graduates – it’s going to be from the school or from where I graduate but they refused to listen to us, and again we were told that some of us (over 80) were targeted so the exam was just a conduit.”

According to him the headmaster without any provocation verbally assaulted him and asked that he returned all school properties and “leave the campus”.

The headmaster’s outburst angered most of teachers who besieged the office to retaliate the verbal assault.

Teachers and students burst out from classrooms and joined in the chaos which resulted in physical brawls until the police were called in.

Sulemana said management of the school was using the examination as conduit to expelled more than 80 targeted teachers.

He declared they were not going to write the exams and that management may have to fabricate another strategy to carry out the illegality.

Children as young as 3yrs were left frightened while some cried uncontrollably at the sight of the confrontation and taken to safety by security men, and were subsequently taken home by their alarmed parents leaving the school empty.

Police officers who came to maintain calm locked up teachers, refusing them to leave the school premises which exacerbated the situation and created another chaotic scene.

The school has since been closed down after an intervention by Chief of Sagnarigu. Management of the school was in a meeting and declined a request for response.