Warning to students

 STUDENTS attending Catholic-run schools will be sent home if they are involved in fights.

Catholic education secretary for Port Moresby Archdiocese Tom Afa’a said school fights, cult practices and alcohol consumption would no longer be tolerated in Catholic agency schools. 

Afa’a said the school’s board of management had laid down a policy to terminate students involved in fights caused by differences among them, cult practices or the use of alcohol.  

He was responding to two complaints brought to The National yesterday by a suspended student of Bomana De La Salle Secondary School and a parent of a student attending Mt Diamond Adventist Secondary School.  

Charles Poye, a Grade Nine student of De La Salle claimed he was suspended with others early this year because they were involved in a fight with a group of senior students from the same school. 

He claimed that the senior students had assaulted them because they refused to join them in cult activities in a primary school last year. 

“The board’s decision was biased, we are innocent and because we couldn’t identify the students who attacked us, we are suspended for the year,” he said. 

A parent who requested not to be named said his son was beaten up by a student from Don Bosco Technical Secondary School on Tuesday while on his way home. 

“The boy attacked my son because he saw my son sitting next to a De La Salle student in the bus. He mistakenly thought my son was also from De La Salle,” he said. 

Afa’a said they were aware that some fights were caused by differences between students from their previous schools, thus he would follow up on Poye’s case. 

“If a student is found to be a victim of a school fight, parents are advised to lodge a report with the concerned school so that investigations will be made,” he said. 

Attempts to call Della Salle for comments were unsuccessful.