Black day for prestigious Saint Gabriel's College
Hundreds of teachers, parents, students and alumni of a prestigious Bangkok school, Saint Gabriel's College, held a protest on Monday, calling for the resignation of its director, Brother Assistant Professor Vinai Viriyavidhayavongs.
The protesters want an inquiry held into an alleged lack of transparency in the way the school operates and its mishandling of several matters over the past five years.
The demonstrators, many wearing black, gathered at the school's Martin De Tours Stadium at 8am, then moved to the front of Vinai’s office to urge him to resign and to suspend the work of his “special adviser”.
The school had never had a special adviser to the director until recently, they said, and they had doubts over the adviser’s qualifications, relationship to the director and need to be employed at all.
Leading protesters also read out a statement criticising various ways the school had mishandled its responsibilities.
These included the pupils’ lunches, which had become less nutritious, staff pay rises that didn't adhere to the regulations, the way the school had invested Bt70 million and other “questionable” ways it had distributed its funds.