The Upper East Regional Minister, Stephen Yakubu, says he is hopeful that, the Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET) Directorate will reopen the Bolgatanga and Bawku Technical Institutes before the end of August 2022.

The two schools were shut down on August 3, 2022, by the Upper East Regional Security Council (REGSEC) following riots that caused destruction to school property including the vehicles of some teachers.

Speaking to Citi News, Mr. Yakubu, hinted that the TVET Directorate is likely to reopen the schools after the final year students end their TVET examination.

“TVET is looking at when the final year students will finish their exams, and my understanding is that the first-year students are also coming.”

“If they (TVET) get the students in now and the final year students are still writing their exams, it won’t serve the purpose. I think the first and second-year students will come in, but that is a decision to be made by TVET”.

Mr. Yakubu also reiterated that urgent investigations by TVET are ongoing to unravel the leakage of examination papers to bring the perpetrators to book.

He emphasized that though REGSEC hasn’t commissioned a committee to investigate the matter, the Directorate of TVET must do so and find measures to avert future occurrences.

“At REGSEC, we know what happened, but we still want the Ghana Education Service (GES) to go deep into the matter to find out the source of the leakage so that such things will never happen again. We are in a country where we don’t need to cheat to pass exams. Cheating is not part of this region, and we will make sure that people don’t cheat.”

“It is the onus of TVET under the GES to set up a committee and try and find out what happened.”

Mr. Yakubu assured that enough security has been detailed at the affected schools to ensure calm whilst the students write the final examination.