:
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maintain his own authority by continuing to
support the school authority. By the time the decision to close the School had to be made, the only other practicable alternative left to the Acting Director of Education for restoring order and normality at the School was for him to order a complete take-over by the Education Department, which would have been unprecedented and in many ways as drastic as, if not more so than, invoking
the closure order.
Thus, in our view, closure of the Precious Blood Golden Jubilee Secondary School was a virtually unavoidable outcome of the situation. It could have been avoided only if the Education Department had been able successfully to play a mediatory or conciliatory role since as early as April 1977.
46.
It would be appropriate here to refer to an observation made in our Interim Report submitted on 1st July 1978, in which
we stated that:
"The disclosure of financial mismanagement
in the School led to a series of ill-advised and
misguided actions and reactions. The situation, aggravated by ineffective communication, was unfortuantely allowed to deteriorate into its present state where intense conflicts exist, feelings are running high and attitudes irretrie- vably hardened. In these circumstances, it would be unrealistic to envisage that normal
where
school life could resume or any degree of harmony
could be achieved if the conflicting parties were put together again."
/This
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