Teacher assault: Compensate victims – NAGRAT

Teachers of the St. John’s 1&2 Primary School in Accra New Town, who suffered attacks from some thugs, should be compensated and transferred from the school, Greater Accra Regional Secretary of the Ghana National Association of Teachers (GNAT), Le-Roy Levi McNara has suggested.

According to him, the safety of the teachers is not guaranteed if they continue to stay in town and teach in the same school because the same thugs or other individuals affiliated to the attackers could assault them again.

"The continuous stay of the teachers in the school, in our opinion, is not safe. It is better to transfer them to locations where they are not known and the assailants or their sympathisers will not be able to immediately identify them," Mr McNara told Prince Minkah on Class91.3FM's Executive Breakfast Show on Monday June 20.

A gang of young men attacked the teachers on Tuesday June 7 after a female pupil was punished by one of the teachers. One of the attackers is alleged to be the pupil’s boyfriend.

Although the police have arrested 17 suspects in connection with the assault, the law enforcers are "yet to confirm if those people are part of those they are looking for", Mr McNara said.

He maintains that provision of adequate security in the school will not be enough to guarantee safety for the teachers because the police will not guard the teachers to their homes, and, therefore, any person who wants to attack the tutors could trail them to their abode.

He buttressed his concerns with a similar attack, a few years ago, on one Rebecca Wollor, a 35-year-old Liberian teacher at the Ada Foah District Assembly Primary School. She was shot dead by her attackers, after trailing her home. "Somebody who was hiding near the house called her name and when she turned she was shot", Mr McNara. To him, such an instance is possible and was safer to have the teachers moved to other schools immediately.

Mr McNara indicated that the association has interacted with seven out of the 12 teachers in the school and six were emphatic that they wished to be transferred because they were not comfortable teaching in the same school after the attack.

He revealed that the association will not relent in its efforts to make sure that justice prevailed and the teachers who were assaulted got adequate compensation.