Hundreds of parents yesterday besieged the premises of the Accra Girls Senior High school to demand the immediate release of their wards after eight students reportedly showed symptoms of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19).
The agitated parents thronged the school following reports that some students and teacher had been admitted at the Ga East Municipal Hospital after testing positive of COVID-19.
It took the timely intervention of the police to prevent the parents from gaining access into the school premises as they insisted on picking up their wards.
The police had to quickly barricade the entrance to prevent the parents who were growing in numbers as they claimed the school authority had failed to give assurance concerning the safety of students on the Parents, Teachers Whatsap platform.
Madam Agnes Laweh, a parent told Ghanaian Times that, she traveled from the Ashanti Region to check whether her daughter was in good condition.
“I want to take my daughter home as she called yesterday that an ambulance came to pick some of the girls who had shown symptoms of COVID-19.
Although the police is preventing us from entering, we are going to sleep here until the school authorities come to speak to us, because the failure to address the parents is causing fear,” she said.
Madam Laweh said if the school authorities had given assurances to the parent concerning the health conditions of the students on the Parents Teachers Whatssap platform, no parent would have thronged the school premises.
“I just want to see my daughter who is asthmatic but the police is preventing us into the school premises. Besides, nobody from the Ghana Education Service or the Ministry of Education had come to address us.
“The Police is rather telling us to go home but we are not going anywhere until the school authorities whom we handed our wards come to speak to us,” Salifu Dabra, a parent said.
The agitation of parents and guardians may have been triggered by increasing cases of COVID-19 in the country. As of yesterday morning, the national tally was 20,085 with 122 deaths and 14,870 recoveries.
President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo in his 10th address to the nation on measures on COVID-19, directed final-year students of SHSs and form two Gold Track students to go back to school to complete their course work.
In the case of the final year students, they were to prepare for their exit exam.
The President’s directive to partial re-open schools followed an earlier one in March which closed down all schools as part of measures to control the spread of COVID-19.
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
