Wandi Progressive Secondary School in Terego district has expelled forty-six students for participating in a strike. The decision to expel the students was reached during an extraordinary Parent’s Teacher’s Association (PTA) meeting held at the school on Saturday.
Thirty-nine of those expelled are senior four candidates while 7 are in the senior three class. The headteacher Eric Ojaku, says that they took the decision to act as a deterrent to other students who think they can destroy school property.
According to Ojaku, the school will refund examination fees paid by the affected students since they have not yet registered the candidates with Uganda National Examinations Board (UNEB).
The students rampaged on March 19th, 2022 after returning from the post-primary netball finals where their school team participated. They destroyed the window panes in the administration block, library and some classrooms worth Shs 1.3 million, according to the school administration.
It took the intervention of the police to stop further damage to school property. Wilfred Saka, the Terego district LC V chairperson has hailed the decision to expel the students. He expressed concern over the increasing cases of violence amongst students in the sub-region noting that key stakeholders need to play their role.
This is not the first time students in West Nile have been dismissed for engaging in a strike. In 2010, sixteen senior four candidates of St Joseph College Ombaci were dismissed for staging a violent strike.
Similarly, twelve students of Moyo Secondary School were expelled for rioting in the school in 2009. Wandi progressive secondary school, which is one of the private schools in the newly created Terego district, has 1042 students.