2020 WASSCE: Students who assault teachers must be arrested – GNAT president

President of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), has called on the Ghana Education Services (GES) to initiate processes to arrest students who have assaulted teachers invigilating the ongoing West Africa Senior School Examination (WASSCE).

Phillipa Larson said Thursday evening that “the fact that government has provided you with past questions doesn’t mean they will come and answer the questions for you.”

“I would want the GES and other security agencies will have to come in and arrest people they have to arrest because threat is also criminal. We will not sit down for our member to be threatened,” she said a Joy News’ current affairs programme.

Her comments follow disturbances by some SHS final year students taking the WASSCE.

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.

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 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.

The Ghana Education Service (GES) has directed school authorities to deboardenise any student established to have been involved in any of the protects and acts of vandalism during the period.

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.