EASTERN PROVINCE
 
Kirehe—After a two-day school strike where over 20 students were injured and a lot of school property destroyed, another director has been appointed for Rusumo High School.

Presenting the new director to students, teaching staff and Kirehe district officials on Thursday, the minister in charge of primary and secondary education, Joseph Murekeraho, urged teachers to be close to their students.

He said that poor leadership was the cause of the strike, and urged everyone to be responsible in their work and cooperate and advise students as they are the future leaders of Rwanda.

"Monitor the students; monitor their health habits like eating and other personal affairs,” the minister said.

The minister, however, warned that investigations were still going on about teachers who are alleged to have had a hand in the strike.

The new director, Father Andrea Mazimpaka, said that cooperation among students and teachers is the only way forward.

Mazimpaka, who has been working in Kibungo Diocese since 1994, served a stint as a Treasurer General in the same diocese between 1996 and 2000.

He is among the exiles who came back to Rwanda in 1994 after the war, and was a rector in Ntungamo Junior Seminary in Tanzania in 1985, and between 1986 and 1992, he was the Director Katoke Seminary Rurenge, also in Tanzania.

Meanwhile all the students who were detained at Kirehe police for causing the strike were released as investigations continue.

They went on strike Monday and Tuesday over the dismissal of Bizimana Gideon, the then Director of the school, by Kirehe district committee for failure to fulfill his office duties.
 
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