Tension mounts at St. Vincent College of Education
Tension is mounting at the St. Vincent College of Education in the Yendi municipality following disagreements between some Muslim students of the school and the school authorities over what the Muslim students termed as the imposition of the Christian religion on them.
Advertisement
The disagreement led to a confrontation between the two parties last Tuesday at the start of the school’s mid-semester examination thereby forcing the school authorities to postpone the examinations indefinitely.
The commotion at the school broke out when some Muslim students who had been punished for failing to attend the school’s morning assembly were prevented from writing the examination.
The affected students, who were infuriated by the decision of the Vice Principal of the school not to allow them to take part in the examination, were alleged to have forcibly entered the examination hall and scattered the examination papers and violently pushed away an Information, Communication and Technology (ICT) tutor who had been asked to invigilate the examination.
Meeting
As of the time of filing the story, a meeting between the out-going Municipal Chief Executive of Yendi, Alhaji Issah Zakaria, the Yendi Municipal Education Director and the school authorities was on-going to amicably resolved the impasse between the Muslim students and the school authorities.
Principal
The Principal of the college, Dr Erasmus Norviewu-Mortty, in an interview with the Daily Graphic, denied that the school authorities had imposed the Christian religion on the Muslim students.
He said he had met with both the Regional and the National Executives of the Ghana Muslim Students Association on the issue and at the meeting, he made some concessions by granting exemption to Muslim students from attending the Sunday Mass (Church service) held in the school and also the permission for them to hold Muslim congregational prayers in the school.
Dr Norviewu-Mortty said he told the Muslim student leadership that as for the daily assembly meetings of the school the Muslim students could not exempt themselves from attending, since that was compulsory and it was also part of the school’s rules and regulations.
He stated that when the school reopened some students who had refused to attend morning assembly were punished but they failed to carry out the punishment and were subsequently prevented from writing the mid- semester examinations.
But that action by the school authorities to prevent the affected students from writing the examination until they had performed the punishment did not go down well with the students who took the laws into their own hands and disrupted the examinations.
The principal said the school authorities therefore decided to call off the examination indefinitely and had instituted investigations into the incident.
Student
The leader of the Muslim students in the college, Mr Abdulai Mahmudu Damba, who spoke to the Daily Graphic said the format of the school’s daily assembly was against their religious beliefs as Muslims hence their decision not to attend.
He explained that during the morning assembly they were forced to sing hymns from the Roman Catholic Hymnals, after which there would be a Christian sermon with quotations taken from the Bible and ended with the general announcement for the students which they felt was against their beliefs.
Mr Damba, who is also the Imam for the Muslim students, therefore, called for an amicable resolution of the matter to bring harmony and peace in the school for academic work to continue, adding that any attempt to force Muslim students in the school to practise the Christian religion would be fiercely resisted.
