Breaking News:  St Georges  Vice Principal Under Fire For Imposing  Corporal  Punishment On Students!!   

By Ebou L. Sowe, Basse

The Vice principal of  the St. Georges Upper Basic school in Basse, Upper River Region,  recently forced  several students at his school to walk on their knees from the school gate to their class rooms in the scourging heat of the sun, leaving severe blisters on the knees of affected the students. 

The children, according to sources, were made to kneel down and walk with their knees to their classes for coming to school late.  "Some fat children  were left in tears as the distance was too far for them to cover trekking  with their knees," said our sources. .
 
"The situation became worst just after school when some of them were not able to walk back home. A group of them went to report to the regional director  in Basse who called the teacher concerned  and asked him to  apologize  to students or risk being fired and prosecuted . Vice Principal Mr Paul then, without wasting much time,  went straight to the school to  apologize to  the children involved as well as to send letters to the parents of the students regreting his action," added our sources.
 
Speaking to Freedom Newspaper ,  Mr. Demba , a father of one of the affected students, said that they had to take their children to the hospital because they were in critical condition, adding that they  spent a lot of money to get them treated. " Now we need to be compensated or else we  will institute legal action against the Vice Principal for tormenting and brutalizing our children,"he fumed.
 
Our sources further hinted that parents of the affected students recently descended on the school ground to receive monetary compensation. " Some of them were   given some amount of money  ranging from D300 to D500 to  cover the medical bills of the affected students," said our sources.

In the wake of this event,many pro child right  agencies in The Gambia including  UNICEF visited   the school to have a first hand information about the incident. According to our sources the child right activists were profoundly unhappy with the way and manner the Vice Principal treated his students and called for an end to such grisly human right abuses.  "The vice principal is currently  under pressure  for imposing the corporal punishment on the students.Many children are happy that action has been taken against their vice principal. They believe that he is looking for promotion "He wants to be seen as a hard teacher and disciplinarian so that he would be given a school to head soon. He is harsh on some teachers too, its good this happened to him it !" said one of the teachers who prefers anonymity.
 
 
The beleaguered the Vice Principal had to this to say when our reporter asked about his comments, "I did not do this to ruffle any body's feather but  only to help the children come to school on time."

It could be recalled that the Gambian  government has in recent years  joined other countries in the globe to enforce laws protecting children  thus ensuring that there is no child abuse in schools. But teachers are still beating children and punishing them inhumanly especially in the urban areas. The children are enduring  the pain with a culture of silence because they are afraid to bring it to the public attention  until it is done in a massive way like that of St. Georges.