Okwapeman, Mount Sinai SHS Sent Home After Clashes
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Okwapeman, Mount Sinai SHS Students Ordered Off Campus After Violent Clashes
Students at Okwapeman Senior High School and Mount Sinai Senior High School in the Eastern Region have been sent home early, after a long-simmering rivalry between the two schools boiled over into violence.
The unrest, rooted in years of tension between the two schools, left several classrooms and other facilities damaged, with a number of students injured in the process.
At Okwapeman SHS specifically, six students were hurt during a reprisal attack. Four have since been discharged from hospital, while two remain under medical care.
The damage couldn’t have come at a worse time. Both schools were already dealing with infrastructure challenges, and now they’re facing the added burden of rebuilding what was destroyed right as government pushes to expand and upgrade senior high school facilities nationwide.
The Eastern Regional Security Council condemned the violence outright and ordered an early vacation for students at both schools, aiming to defuse tensions before things escalate further.
Eastern Regional Police Commander DCOP Joseph Owusu Bempah didn’t mince words when addressing students directly. If you decide to be unruly and your headmaster and staff cannot handle the situation, let me sound a warning of caution. If you are in a group or a mob and decide to flout the law, take the law into your own hands or misbehave, don’t think you won’t be fished out. We cannot arrest the entire school, but the gang leaders must take responsibility. We will look for the ring leaders, and I promise you, you will be prosecuted.
He extended that warning beyond the school gates too. And if you are asked to vacate the school and decide not to, but instead mix up with miscreants in town to misbehave, we will look for you and treat you like a common criminal. Those of you who pelt stones at the police must also stop. Otherwise, the police will come at you with force.
Eastern Regional Minister Rita Akosua Awatey didn’t hold back either, calling on the schools to finally put an end to a rivalry that’s dragged on for years especially at a moment when government is investing heavily in improving school infrastructure and reforming the education system.
She pointed out that the whole clash could have been avoided if students had simply reported the first incident instead of retaliating. Our expectation as government is to groom you students to take over from us. It takes two to fight. When they pelted the stones, you should have reported for the police to come in, yet you exchanged stones.
She tied the incident back to a bigger picture too, framing it against government’s efforts to end the double-track system. Now that government is making efforts to build the infrastructure that will end the double track system and enable us to have single track, this is what you are doing.
Her directive to students was firm and immediate. We are building our nation and resetting our schools and students. If this rivalry has existed for years, with this resetting, put a stop to it. The Regional Education Director has announced that everyone should leave the school latest by 1 p.m. Before 2 p.m., everyone should be gone. Pack your things so that as soon as you finish your paper, you leave. If you are seen in uniform at home, you are on your own. Investigations are going on. We won’t allow you to go scot-free.
The incident has reignited broader concerns about indiscipline and hooliganism among students in some senior high schools across the country. For now, the hope is that this forced break gives both schools room to cool off and prevents any further reprisal attacks.
Students from both schools are expected to return when senior high schools reopen nationwide for the fresh academic year on September 18.
