Nuns lock themselves in monastery as school girls run riot

Nov 14, 2011

19 students of St. Teresa Callicuta in Kihiihi Town Council, Kanungu district have been suspended following a strike at the school where the girls threatened to beat up the Deputy Headmistress Sister Petronia Kyomugisha accusing her administration of failure to provide enough food to them.

PATSON BARAIRE

Students of St. Teresa Callicuta in Kihiihi Town Council, Kanungu district have been suspended following a strike at the school where the girls threatened to beat up the Deputy Headmistress Sister Petronia Kyomugisha accusing her administration of failure to provide enough food to them.    
 
According to Sister Kyomugisha who is now the caretaker f the school in absence of the substantive headmistress who is on sick leave, 19 girls especially from senior five and senior three became unruly on Thursday last week and refused to eat supper and when she tried to talk to them they threatened to beat her up which prompted her to seek assistance from the Police who rushed there and calmed the situation.
 
By the time the Police arrived at the school which is about  2km away, the nuns who run the school and some of the male teachers had hidden in the nuns residence within the school where they locked themselves.
 
On  realizing that the Police had arrived at the school campus at around 7.00 pm the girls also took refugee in their dormitories where they locked themselves inside and refused to open for the police.
 
"We found the girls had  locked themselves inside their dormitories but we broke the padlocks after several pleas to convience them to open and talk to us,"Amos Tishekwa who led the operation told this reporter.
 
However the Police managed to get access to the girls and advised them against doing any mischief or else face dire consequences before they left some officers at the school to patrol the place.
 
The students were addressed by the Officer in charge of Anti Riot Police in Kanungu Celestine Tukahirwa who asked the girls to focus on their books for their future other than getting involved in strikes.
 
The students told the police that they were being fed on poor food quality, the canteen had hiked prices of the commodities, the corporal punishments had become the order of the day and the teachers had refused to listen to the protectorate to address their issues.   
 
They demanded that the teachers should apologize to them over mistreatment which according to an inside source was done and this reportedly energized the girls who on the following day after finding the food little decided to riot again.
 
"We realized that there was a problem and we had to find out the ring leaders who have been suspended," Sister Kyomugisha said.
 
St. Teresa Callucuta was started in 2007 by the then Woman Member of Parliament Kanungu district Hon Jacqueline Kyatuheire to help the education of the girl child in Kanungu district.

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