Maracha-Terego students detain, frogmarch another headmaster

His crime? Maladministration:) In Uganda they seem to be taking education quite seriously:)

News | June 22, 2009
Maracha-Terego students detain, frogmarch another headmaster
http://www.monitor.co.ug/artman/publish/news/Maracha-Terego_students_detain_frogmarch_another_headmaster_86855.shtml
Warom Felix Okello
Maracha-Terego

Aria Secondary School in Maracha-Terego District was closed on Friday and all 371 students ordered home as authorities scrambled to contain a strike, edging towards possible violent destruction of property.

Citing maladministration, enraged students roughed up their headmaster, Mr Dante Adrabo, whom they later frogmarched to the district offices, before demanding for his immediate transfer. The demonstrators, numbering 180, also allegedly tortured the school chaplain, Fr Nazarino Luiji, believed to be an ally of the head teacher, accused of running down the rural institution. Terrified female students who did not join the revolt were clobbered by the rowdy boys, witnesses said.

Ms Flavia Droti, the senior district education officer, told Daily Monitor yesterday that they decided to shut the school for a fortnight to calm nerves and restore sanity as officials chart the way forward. “The school will re-open on July 6. In the meantime, the board of governors is going to sit and set up a team to investigate the people behind the strike,” she said. It is understood the aggressive tone the students used in their memorandum, including a threat to kill the headmaster if he surfaces at the school, pumped fear in district authorities that the worst was yet to unravel.

On the eve of the demonstration, the students reportedly uprooted vast acres of cassava plantations owned by Fr. Luiji after suspecting the man of God was plotting to sabotage their moves. In their memorandum to district leaders, the students said: “We are not ready to be ruled by him (Mr Adrabo). So, we ask the Ministry of Education officials to transfer him immediately.” The students alleged that they were being served meals made from expired maize flour. They also accused the headmaster of illegally selling five of the school’s cattle.

The embattled headmaster, however, denies the allegations, saying he only agreed to walk five kilometres on the demonstration day under pressure because the students had earlier “collared me.”
He said: “I followed the right procedures because it was the resolution of the parents to sell the cattle,” Mr Adrabo said. The students had earlier accused him of being incompetent, corrupt, failing to deliver on promises and letting male staff sexually harass female students. It was not immediately clear if any administrative action, or the transfer of the headmaster that the students demanded, would be actualised.

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