The Chronicle

BULAWAYO, Monday, August 8, 1966 — About 100 African students from senior classes and teachertraining classes of Empandeni School, a Catholic mission near Plumtree, were sent home on Thursday and Friday for indiscipline. This section of the school was closed, said an Empandeni spokesman yesterday.

The Catholic bishop of Bulawayo, the Rt Rev AG Schmitt, confirmed yesterday that all classes at Empandeni above Form One had been closed.

The offending behaviour included drunkenness, he said.

When some students were suspended by the director of the mission, Father Edmar, a crowd of students protested. There was unruly behaviour, the Bishop said. “At one stage, I am told that one or two stones were thrown.”

Father Edmar was away from Empandeni when a Chronicle reporter tried to reach him yesterday, but another priest at the mission confirmed that students broke into the mission’s power house and cut off power and lights.

But the cut was brief. Father Edmar switched on the motors again a few minutes later.

There was no one in the power house when Father Edmar examined it, the priest said. Father Edmar found a window had been broken, to effect entry.

The priest said a full report on matters leading up to this incident and to the closing of the senior classes had been sent to the Minister of Education by the headmaster, Father Benno.

The students had been sent away by bus on Thursday and Friday. All were told they must re-apply for admission if they wished to return to school next term.

This term would have closed on August 24.