We Won’t Sit Down For Our Members To Be Threatened . . . Legal Action Will Be Taken - GNAT Fumes At SHS Students

The National President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Philipa Larson has described the pockets of vandalism perpetrated by some of the final students in the ongoing exit examinations in the Senior High Schools across the country as unprecedented.

According to Philipa Larson, there should be legal action against the students who brutalized the teachers supervising the ongoing West African Senior Secondary Certificate Examinations (WASSCE), describing the incidents as worrying.

On Thursday, students of Bright Senior High School at Kukurantumi in the Eastern Region attacked officials of the West African Examination Council (WAEC) supervising the exercise.

A journalist with the Daily Graphic in the Region who had gone to the school to report has also been assaulted by the students leaving him with severe injuries.

Again, the final year students of the Tweneboa Kodua Senior High School in the Ashanti Region rioted on August 3 which resulted in the destruction of property during the writing of the WASSCE Integrated Science paper.

Some students also claim the past questions distributed by the government did not reflect in the final paper, contributing to the rationale behind the pockets of vandalism recorded in schools in parts of the country.

GNAT President reacting to the pockets of incidents in the various Senior High Schools on JoyNews said that the government providing the students with past questions did not mean those questions will come for the students to answer them.

With regard to the threats of attacks, Madam Philipa Larson was of the view that the act perpetrated by the students is criminal, calling on the Ghana Education Service to invite the police to arrest perpetrators.

“I would want the GES and other security agencies will have to come in and arrest people; they have to arrest because the threat is also criminal. We will not sit down for our members to be threatened,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed school authorities to ask any student established to have been involved in any of the protects and acts of vandalism during the period to go home.

The GES Director-General, Prof Kwasi Opoku-Amankwa in a statement noted that any destruction of school property should be surcharged against students found guilty of the riot adding that criminal acts committed should be reported to the police for investigation.