Students and management of Lassia Tuolo SHS are attributing their loss in the National Science and Maths Quiz qualifiers to the conflict between two communities in the area which has killed at least three persons.
The students say the communal unrest coupled with other infrastructural deficits is heavily impacting academic activities.
Despite their spirited performance to book a slot at the nationals, the school came second behind Wa SHS in the Upper West regional qualifiers.
They are imploring feuding factions in the community to ceasefire as they called on the government to increase security surveillance in the area.
The students after their heated contest with Wa SHS, and three others told JoyNews’ Emmanuel Bright Quaicoe that they were scared coming to the regional capital for the quiz.
“We prayed that God will bring us here and take us safely home. We have been confined to our hostels with no access to our learning materials since the conflict begun. If you see a gun and you have a quiz coming up, that was scary and everything was messed up,” one of the students said.
Teachers at the school are left with no option than to confine the students in their dormitories to avoid being the next victim.
“We had commuters staying around campus running to the school to seek shelter. If you have outsiders in your school, their present alone will frighten your students,” a teacher worriedly said.
Other infrastructural deficits are a bane to the school’s preparations as they bemoaned the school’s poor IT and science laboratories.
In March, the school’s dinning hall was razed by fire.
“We don’t even eat properly because our dinning hall is burnt,” the student added.
The school ended the contest with 34 points as against Wa SHS’s 39 points.
The two were in a contest against Kanton SHS, Jamiat Islamic Girls SHS and Northern Star SHS.
But the school is optimistic of an improved performance in the next participation.
Meanwhile, Wa SHS together with Nandom SHS and St. Francis of Assisi Girls SHS have qualified to the national stage of the competition.
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