By Charles Gbayor, maorethason1997@gmail.com
HARPER, Liberia- The administration of Jasper Grant United Methodist High School in Pleebo Sodoken District, southeastern Maryland County have expelled three students who were said to taking in narcotic substance on the school’s campus.
The action against the trio was taken recently (October 13, 2022) against the trio who are in the 9th grade for allegedly Smoking Cocaine on campus during regular class period. They are expected to sit the pending 2023 Academic WAEC Examination.
Speaking to www.newspublictrust.com, Mr. Joseph C. Blayon, Dean of Student affairs at the Institution named three 9th grade students as Jaffa Neh, Mark Weah and Augustine Taylor, who he said were issued letters of expulsion due to what the school Handbook terms as “Academic Crime”.
Mr. Blayon stressed that those mentioned students were found smoking drug in an unfinished office of the school computer laboratory during regular school hours and was caught by the School’s Principal, Mr. Joseph Kay who turned them over to the disciplinary committee at the Institution for further investigation.
He further explained that, through a thorough investigation conducted by the committee, the three students admitted to the act, noting that, it is their usual habits of smoking illegal drug on the campus during school time.
He stressed that, they were five students suspected of the act but following a thorough investigation conducted by the disciplinary committee of the institution, two were free from such activities, proving that they weren’t part of the act.
Several social workers and others have raised the red flag in recent times about the threat to the young population that is being caused by the proliferation of illicit substances across the country. Just this week, a schoolboy was caught with many raps of marijuana in his bag at a public school in Liberia’s Western Bomi County, after which the boy’s mother confirmed that it belongs to her as a drug dealer, but she told the Drug Enforcement Agency officers that she did not know how her son got hold of the item.
Meanwhile, Mr. Blayon of the Jasper Grant United Methodist High School in Maryland County has said that when contacted, the parents of the three 9th grade students caught using cocaine on campus, one of the parents condemned the act.
The parent supported the action of the school’s administration to expel them immediately from the school, in order to avoid damaging the mind of their colleagues at the Institution.
He quoted the parent as saying that this will serve as deterrent warning to all the students in the school who might have been thinking of doing the same thing.
He called on the students to exhibit good moral behaviour, noting that, the institution is the place of learning and transforming lives.