MVARA SS ‘A’ LEVEL STRIKES OVER SCHOOL NEWS ARTICLE

  

Mvara Senior Secondary School in Arua City, (Photo: Onzoma Albert)

By Onzoma Albert

Arua City

The administration of Mvara Secondary School strongly condemns the student strike and property damage that occurred on Monday night.

According to the school head teacher, Eliakim Matua Onyiga, the incident originated during the weekly school assembly on Monday evening.

During the assembly, a news article was read about two Senior Six candidates who had been disciplined by the administration over a theft case.

This reading, performed by Senior Five students, sparked a quarrel between the Senior Five and Senior Six students.

Upon learning about the exchange of bitter words between the two classes, the school administration promptly organized a meeting involving Senior Four, Five, and Six students.

During this meeting, the administration clarified the facts regarding the news article and agreed with the students that their behavior was unacceptable.

The students from both classes then agreed to drop the matter and adhere to the school’s rules and regulations.

However, after evening prep time at around 10:00 pm, the two classes disregarded this agreement and resumed their quarrel. This led to significant commotion within the school, prompting intervention by school staff, the security team, and the office of the Resident City Commissioner (RCC).

To restore order, the authorities fired warning bullets into the air and used teargas to disperse the disruptive students.

Eliakim Matua Onyiga, head teacher of Mvara SS during media briefing at the school on Tuesday (Photo: Onzoma Albert)

Since the incident, the school administration, along with the Arua City RCC, has engaged in a series of meetings with various school stakeholders to address the underlying issues.

Head teacher Matua described the event as unfortunate and clearly against the school’s established rules and regulations.

“This is an unfortunate incident which we condemn as the school administration because this boys are supposed to see themselves as brothers in the school other than enemies, the incident of helping the two students who were involved in theft case was really done because theft is serious offence, I think as a school we had to punish those students who were involved in the theft using our school rules and regulations” he said.

In the aftermath, no students were suspended or sent home. However, during the strike, the boys’ dormitory suffered damage when students from both Senior Five and Six exchanged stones, shattering window glasses.

The school administration is currently assessing the extent of the damage to determine the appropriate measures against those identified as leading or involved in the unrest.

Mvara SS students being addressed by the school administration after the strike (Photo: Onzoma Albert)

Deputy RCC of Arua City for Arua Central Division, Ivan James Namoma, confirmed that students arrested during the strike have been returned to the school. He attributed the cause of the strike to a poor mindset among learners and stated that the situation is now under control.

“Security agencies immediately intervened and calm has been restored in the school even those students who were arrested have been returned back to the school, the situation is back to normal but we have kept our ears on ground as we keep on engaging the school administration and learners as we address the mindset issues that led to the strike,” he said.

This is not the first incident of unrest at Mvara Secondary School. The school experienced a similar strike in 2016, which involved protests over policies such as locking dormitories during lesson time that resulted into vandalism of offices and buildings.

The administration remains committed to maintaining discipline and ensuring a peaceful learning environment for all students.