The Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS), has urged parents to exercise restraint over their attempt to withdraw their wards from second cycle institutions that have recorded cases of COVID-19.
This comes after some worried parents besieged the Accra Girls Senior High School to have their children return home after six cases of Coronavirus infections were reported in the school.
Speaking to Citi News, President of CHASS, Yakubu Abubakar said parents should trust school authorities to resolve their challenges.
“The challenge we have with the school is that, when such a thing happens and you don’t control the parents, before you realize, you will have an unfortunate scene. I am sure the school is in consultation with the Ghana Education Service to see how to appropriately address it. For the gate of the school to be opened for the parents to come for their ward, this will result in some stampede and other unfortunate results. So I am sure due diligence is being done, consultations are going on. The students are also being contained for the appropriate measures to be taken. If authorities at the end of the day feel students should be allowed to go home, they will allow them,” he said.
Students’ fears
Earlier, students of the school protested to put pressure on the management of the school to allow them to go home.
Students gathered on the school’s premises in the hope that their parents will come and take them home.
They were demonstrating amidst fears that the virus was spreading amongst them.
The infected students were isolated in the school’s sickbay on Monday, June 29, 2020, together with some other students who also showed symptoms of COVID-19.
Health officials from the Ayawaso North Health directorate on Saturday, July 4, moved the students who tested positive to the Ga East Municipal Hospital for treatment.
The students, who gathered outside their classrooms, kept chanting: “We’ll go home.”
Parents react
Anxious parents also trooped to the school to try and take their wards home.
Police officers were deployed to the school to prevent the agitated parents from entering the premises of the school.
Speaking to journalists, a parent said: “I heard the news last night, so, I rushed here to find out what was happening… I’m anxious and scared and, so, we need the school authorities to tell us something.”
According to some of the parents, no student was tested when schools resumed.
They believe this is the cause of the current problem.
Final-year Junior and Senior High School students returned to school in June 2020 to prepare for their final examinations.
The schools were initially shut down in March because of the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
