Pupil Dies After Caning

A packed Akim Oda Magistrate’s Court was filled with shocked silence, when the prosecution read a charge of provisional murder against a teacher who allegedly administered two strokes of the cane on a 14 year-old pupil who died later in the day.

The teacher, Kwabena Gyan of Oda Nkwanta Local Authority Primary ‘B’ School was said to have punished the pupil, Victoria Ampofo, and others for lateness to school.

Some of the teachers and relatives began to weep and had to be helped out of the courtroom, while others wiped their faces with handkerchiefs when Gyan was remanded in police custody for felony.

His plea was not taken and he is to appear again on March 19.

The trial judge, Mr Albert Owusu Annor, said the adjournment was to allow the police to complete investigations into the circumstances that led to the death of the pupil.

The body has been deposited at the mortuary of the Oda Government Hospital awaiting autopsy. The court heard that Gyan, was the teacher on duty on March 3. In that capacity he punished some of the class five pupils who came to school late.

Chief Inspector Osei Kwadwo, the prosecutor, told the court that Gyan gave each of the pupils two lashes on their buttocks and thereafter instructed them to pick leaves littered around the school compound.

Later, the girl became unconscious and fell down while getting out of her desk in the classroom. She was rushed to the Oda Government Hospital where she was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.