Tension is brewing at the Damongo Nurses Training College with students planning a demonstration against the Principal, Hajia Iddrisu Rabiatu.
The students are accusing Hajia Rabiatu of running down the school and have vowed to protest to demand her removal.
There are reports that the school did not supervise clinicals of its continuing students in February and March due to lack of funds.
First-year students who went on clinicals in April were nearly turned away by some health facilities because they reportedly did not have name tags which are mandatory for students on clinicals.
The school has also not released results for re-sit examination and practical examination for the semester.
All vehicles belonging to the school– three pick-up trucks and a bus– are down except the pick-up being used by the Principal.
As a result, students result to public transport to other districts for clinicals.
These challenges and congestion at hostels among others are what Hajia Rabiatu’s accusers point out as her failures.
They say things were much better in the school during the time of her predecessor.
Students who spoke to Citi News on condition of anonymity say most of them have to feed themselves because of the low quality of food they are fed with.
“What kind of school is this? We have a lot of problems, yet the principal is always in Tamale or elsewhere, she can’t stay here for even a week. How can I pay for clinicals and when I go to Tamale, you tell me to pay my own fare and return. Did I send myself there?” another student quizzed.
A member of the students representative council said since they were elected, meeting the principal has been impossible.
As a result, they have petitioned the principal on their grievances, but that has not also been responded to.
“Since we took over, she has not met us, we wrote to her requesting for a meeting and she did not respond, we have petitioned her and even that no response, we went to her office and she sent us away so we are left with no other way out than to use force, we will demonstrate against her.”
As of Friday, April 8, 2022, the Students Representative Council (SRC) is battling a directive to break the school for over a week for Easter without feeding.
The SRC contends that they have paid for all those days, so the school must feed students who do not intend to travel for the break, which they say is unduly long.
“Things were much better under her predecessor, she can’t maintain vehicles, she can’t maintain buildings, go round and look at the school, rain rips part of a building. Instead of them to fix them they are left like that to get worse, go and look at the quarters, look at the old ICT lab why is it so? Is that how her predecessor was managing the school?”
Some Tutors of the school are also unhappy about the running of the school.
“The school is broke, just less than three months after first year students paid fees, most continuing students paying fees the school cant even get money for us to supervise clinicals, this school need saving” a tutor told Citi News on condition of anonymity.
It took the intervention of the Damongo Youth parliament and the regional minister to prevent a demonstration against the principal last year, but it does appear that will be difficult to do this year following widespread anger among students and some Tutors.
Meanwhile, all attempts to get the response from the principal have been futile.
Source: citinewsroom
