Police fire teargas, bullets to disperse striking Ndorwa Muslim S.S students

Police have used live bullets and teargas to quell down a violent strike by students at Ndorwa Muslim Secondary School in Southern Division in Kabale Municipality. Students rampaged on Wednesday afternoon and started pelting their teachers with stones and destroyed windowpanes in several classrooms.
It took the intervention of anti-riot police to fire live bullets and teargas to disperse the striking students. Police also picked up one of the students believed to be the mastermind of the strike and locked him at Kabale Central Police Station.

The students accuse the school administration of increasing tuition in the middle of the term from Shs90,000 to 130,000 with promises of improving the quality of posho served at the school in vain. They also accuse their deputy head teacher, Dominic Tumukunde alias Doxy of allegedly stealing Shs20,000 from a senior one student identified as Ronald Ainamani.

One of the students told this reporter on condition of anonymity that Mr Tumukunde got a chance to steal the money when Ainamani picked a meal card from his pocket to present it to the chef to get food. He also claimed that the same Deputy Head Teacher used the same trick last week and stole Shs70,000 from another student.

Another student says they rampaged after getting tired of being fed on rotten posho. He explained that despite increasing tuition to address the problem, the school management did nothing. But Mr Tumukunde has rubbished the accusations leveled against him as false, saying most of the students who participated in the strike acted under influence of Alcohol.

The school Head Teacher, Mr Ismail Kyooma Baguma, couldn't be reached for comment as he was not at the school and his known mobile was unavailable. Mr Majid Alituha, the Officer in Charge of Operations at Kabale Central Police Station, says police had to intervene to stop the students from destroying school property as well as harming their teachers.
This is not the first student's strike in Kigezi region in the recent past. On October 16th, 2017, Kigezi high school students rampaged and set ablaze the prefects’ dormitory alias "White House.

They also burnt the house used by their senior man teacher, Mr James Katureebe. The students rampaged after the school management expelled four students for their alleged involvement in sexual relations contrary to the school regulations.

They also demanded the transfer of their Deputy Head Teacher in Charge of Academics, Mr Edison Bakiga for alleged cruelty. The students also accused the administration of failing to buy a pick-up truck yet they have been contributing Shs50,000 each term since 2013.
On October 21st, the students rejected breakfast and lunch provided by the school, demanding the unconditional release of eleven students who were locked up at Kabale police station for masterminding the violent strike. 49 students were later expelled from the school.