Goodhope Senior temporarily shut down
Baboki Kayawe | Tuesday September 19, 2017 16:18
This follows students’ unruly behaviour on Sunday night, allegedly ignited by two male students who trespassed into the girls hostel to ‘hang out’ with their girlfriends, sources say.
Goodhope councillor Ogopotse Modibedi who stays about 50 metres from the school said he rushed there upon hearing commotion that broke out at 8pm. He told Mmegi in an interview that students’ behaviour was out of control.
“At 6pm, the two boys went to the girls’ hostel, and security guards managed to chase them away. However, they went back to the girls’ hostels during evening study,” Modibedi said.
Moreover, some female students reported missing property after the evening study, consequently a search team composing of security guards, head of departments and the school head went there to investigate the theft. “I am told upon the team’s arrival, they found the two boys at the girls hostels.
But when the school head told them they were breaking boarding laws, the students stated whistling, gathered stoned and attacked the guards and the school head. Two boys who were in the girls’ hostels were very militant and demanded that they be allowed to be with their girlfriends,” he said.
The situation is said to have been bad such that the police were called to intervene, and the two were detained.
“They threw stones and chased them. The guards and the school head ran to the school grounds whereupon students enclosed them, and only retreated when the school head spoke to let the learners know he was part of the team,” Modibedi said.
Yesterday morning, events took a new twist when majority of male boarding students appeared in weird haircuts at the assembly area.
“School management then took a decision to send all boarding students back, and were instructed to come with their parents for a meeting on Wednesday,” he said.
Goodhope Police station commander, Mogomotsi Kwapa confirmed the incident. He said the two boys had trespassed into the girls’ hostels, and upon being taken out by the security guards a group of 50 boys started misbehaving, demanding that the two be set free as they did no wrong, but were with their girlfriends.
“The two boys then started being a nuisance and the other students started throwing stones at the school head, head of departments and the security guards. They also threw stones at us. Upon realising that the situation was getting ugly, we detained the two Form 5 boys,” he said.
According to Kwapa, the two were released last morning. However, South region education office watered down the issue. “It was nothing much. People are exaggerating the matter,” the chief education officer, Ndinini Mbuso said, on behalf of the regional director. Mbuso said he spoke to the deputy school head who assured him “all was fine, and no arrests were made”.
“The students were only making noise. It’s nothing much,” Mbuso said.
When asked why learners would be sent home for noise making, he said they had not obeyed some rules stipulated for boarding students, but he declined to state the rules contravened.
“I won’t go into details on that matter,” Mbuso said.