Security Maintains Presence At Kimanya Secondary School As Students Return

Anti-riot police have maintained their presence at Blessed Sacrament Kimamya Secondary school in Masaka city, a week after students attempted to torch the school premises. 

The security personnel are currently manning the school’s main gate and watching over from different corners as students in candidate classes report back from a forced suspension. 

On Sunday last week, the boarding students turned rowdy and protested the recurrent power blackouts and water supply disruptions, highhandedness of teachers, and poor quality meals among other problems.

After hours of a tense situation, security was prompted to intervene and accordingly ordered the closure of the school to contain the situation. Ronald Katende Kinene, the Masaka City Resident Commissioner, says that they allowed the school to reopen under tight security to prevent similar eventualities.   

He says that during a crisis meeting between the district security committee, the Board of Governors, school management, and the education inspectors, they unanimously agreed to have a phased reopening starting with students in candidate classes to allow them to prepare to seat their mock examinations. 

According to Kinene, the police are deployed to ensure the safety of the school and are under instructions to conduct thorough checking of the returning students to ensure that they don’t smuggle in any dangerous substances. Katende says the security presence will be maintained at the school as long as the situation warrants, arguing that they do want any reoccurrence that may interrupt the school’s operations.

Allan Gyaviira Muwonge, the school Headteacher, says they have composed themselves to resume their operations as they wait for a comprehensive police investigations report about the strike. According to him, they will continue counseling the students as they return to class on the ways of bringing the situation back to full normalcy. 

He explains that after the candidate classes settle in, they will also eventually receive students in other classes, adding that they don’t have any problems with security presence at the school.  Muwonge however remains tightlipped on the fate of the fourteen students who were arrested on Monday on allegations of being the ringleaders of the botched strike.

Notably, shortly after the students were suspended the Education Secretary for Masaka Catholic Diocese; which is the foundation body and Security Committee set up a special team to probe into the causes of strikes and generate a comprehensive report in two weeks. The committee was instructed to investigate the conduct of some teachers whom the students accused of harassment.