St Joseph’s Vocational School in Mbarara City was closed by the police on Saturday evening, following a students’ strike over their disqualification from a football contest.
The students had earlier gone to compete in a football match against Nyamitanga Secondary School in the ongoing Coca-cola Post Primaries in the greater Mbarara region.
The rampage rooted from the allegation that the headmaster indirectly led to the disqualification of the school because he doesn’t want them to engage in sports.
“We were dying to play our opponents because they beat us before but all our hopes were crashed by the headmaster’s assumption that he was helping by getting us disqualified,” one of the senior students said.
The head teacher, Rev. Fr Godwin Muhangi, is accused of conspiring with the referees after they were allegedly delayed on assembly.
“We were told to go to the playground in Kakiika at 9am after holding an assembly, however, on arrival we got information that we were disqualified for arriving late because the match was supposed to start at 8am,” another senior student at the school said.
“We found the team we were meant to play with to qualify to semi-finals already playing. That is when we knew it was the plan by the headmaster because he has been sabotaging almost all the sports activities, including basketball,” he added
One of the parents and self-proclaimed former student, blamed the school administration for allowing students reach the level of demonstrating.
“I am an old boy of this school but issues like these should not fail the administration. It can do better, I am so disappointed I must say,” he said.
However, other students accused police of escalating the strike after officers allegedly fired bullets to disperse students who had gone to meet the archbishop of Mbarara.
“The problem escalated when the police came and wanted to beat us again, yet we were already in school. They had already chased us from the Archdiocese where we had gone to tell the Archbishop that we no longer want the head teacher,” another student said.
With the help of police, the head teacher suspended all the students to allow investigations into the matter to start.
“The school has been temporarily closed until further notice due to the strike where school structures were damaged. Students were demanding to meet the archbishop, which was not possible and they became unruly and damaged school property,” Rwizi region police spokesperson, Samson Kasasira said.
The Rev.Fr Muhangi declined to comment on the matter since it is being investigated by police.
In the past one month, at least 29 schools have witnessed student strikes, leading to the closure of about eight of them.
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