Basic school reopens as chiefs undertake to ensure teachers' safety

Ho, July 9, GNA - The Dzolo-Gborgame EP Basic school complex, closed, as a result of attacks and threats on the lives of teachers, was reopened on Monday after an undertaking by chiefs and elders to restrain their unruly youth.

The undertaking to the Regional Director of the GES Ho and others "fully guarantees the safety of all teachers in the community, keep surveillance over the activities of the youth closely and enforce the community byelaw that all youth should disappear from the streets by 2100 hours".

The chiefs also promised to identify and make the trouble makers "face the full rigours of the law and maintain complete peace and calm in the community to make all the teachers feel at home". The undertaking was signed by Togbe Ekar Feakpi Abobor III, Kingmaker and Secretary.

Events that built-up to teachers fleeing Dzolo-Gborgarme and the eventual closure of the school on June 4 included defecation in the classrooms of some three targeted teachers and the plastering of sexually emotive graffiti about a lady teacher on the walls of the school's KVIP toilet.

Mr Stephen Kofi Ahiatafu, Anyirawase District Commander, said the arrest of a suspect for attempting to rape a guest of the lady teacher, one of the teachers targeted by the youth, and threats to harm teachers who helped the police, led to the fleeing of all 29 teachers from the town.

Mr Ahiataku told the GNA on Tuesday that the decision to reopen the school followed meetings involving the chiefs and elders of the town, Ho Municipal political authorities, education managers, officials of the Ghana Association of Teachers and the police. A source at the school said three teachers, thought to be the main targets of the youth, had been transferred with the assurance that request of the other teachers to be transferred would be readily granted.

He said in the case of all teachers leaving, the understanding was that the chiefs and elders of the town would have to look for teachers themselves for posting to the town.