Rioting pupils bay for principal's blood

NSINGWENI – Police had to use teargas to disperse over 300 rioting pupils of Nsingweni High School on Friday, who were baying for the principal’s blood.

This was after the pupils failed to sit for an Agriculture Paper Two examination on October 28, alleging that they were given a ‘forged’ paper.

The pupils alleged that the Principal, Joseph Lukhele, gave them copies of the exam paper, something which they did not like. However, Lukhele dismissed the claims.

"It is true that pupils did not write the paper on the said date. What happened here is that we did not get the paper from the Ministry of Education. Seeing that my pupils would miss out, I then decided to get copies from a nearby school. So that is where the problem started," Lukhele explained.

On Friday, at around 11am, soon after writing their paper (Combined Science, Physics and Chemistry), the pupils started toyi-toying in the presence of some parents who were attending a meeting.

Initially, the rioting was started by Form Five pupils who were not writing examinations, but were waiting outside the school premises. The pupils started pelting windows with stones, resulting in their colleagues coming out of classrooms to join them. A prompt response by Mliba Police saved what could have been a nasty situation, by forcing the pupils out of the school premises.

However, this was not an easy task because the pupils retaliated by throwing stones at the police. At a distance, some of the pupils were shouting that the principal should vacate, if not they would burn down the school.

At around 2pm, the pupils started throwing stones again and further insulting the police officers who were standing at the school entrance.

Whilst throwing the stones, the pupils were drawing closer to the school. The police reacted by firing teargas canisters at them.

This was followed by screams from the pupils as they scattered, running into the nearby bushes.

With the concentration on one side, a mischievous pupil sneaked in near the teachers’ quarters and started a fire.

Police had to quickly switch from being officers to be fire-fighters. They cut tree branches to put out the fire, which they successfully did.

After these instances, the situation was calm.

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