Alhaji Mohammed Haroon Cambodia with Polycarp Kuusokub Beyelle inspecting the burnt dormitory
St. Charles Seminary High School in the Northern Regional capital of Tamale has been temporarily closed down by the school authorities over fire outbreak.
The first and second-year students have been asked to go home and report back on 28th March, 2017.
The decision, which was taken by the authorities in collaboration with the regional director of education, was to enable students who were affected by the fire to go home for some clothes and other materials they might need.
The situation, many people guess, could affect the examination of the final-year students, who were supposed to start writing the General Agric papers on 22nd March, 2017.
However, third-year students who do not have any exams on Wednesday, 22nd March, were also asked to go home and come back today.
There are 224 final-year students registered to write The West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE).
The headmaster of the school, Polycarp Kuusokub Beyelle, confirmed this when he was addressing the student body.
He appealed to the first and second-year students to release their note books to their seniors to study from since the fire had destroyed almost everything in the affected dormitory.
A student who spoke to DAILY GUIDE said the fire started at about 9:30 pm whiles the students were at prep learning.
According to him, they heard their colleagues shouting and when they came out of the classrooms they saw that the last floor of the two-storey dormitory was on fire.
The building has three houses – St. Lwanga, St. Augustine and St. Mukasa – with a total number of 503 students in the dormitory.
Information gathered by DAILY GUIDE indicates that the first floor of the same building recorded fire outbreak last year.
The Northern Regional Director of Education, Alhaji Mohammed Haroon Cambodia, said he sympathized with the final-year students and that the trauma could cause some of them to forget what they had learnt.
According to him, he had ordered the supply of 100 mattresses for the school in the interim and also appealed to other organizations and institutions to come to the aid of the school.
The Northern Regional Fire Service Public Relations Officer, ADO1 Nicholas Pokou Akins, told DAILY GUIDE that his outfit suspects the fire might have been caused by some illegal connections at the dormitory.
ADO1 Akins cautioned students to stop using gas cookers, heaters, electric irons and other heavy gadgets in their various dormitories.
FROM Eric Kombat, Tamale
(kombat.eric@yahoo.com)