The Minister of Education, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, has described as unfortunate, violent clashes that ensued at the campuses of the University of Ghana and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, KNUST.
He has thus asked Management of the Universities to act swiftly against the development and find a lasting solution to the age old student radicalism and vandalism behaviour.
“It is unfortunate, I had a long talk with the Vice Chancellor we are not happy that the future leaders of this country will behave like this manner,” he said on Friday August 19.
The Bosomtwe lawmaker added “we want the Universities to find a lasting solution to this, the students need to be counselled that you don’t resort to violence to address concerns.”
He further indicated that if the students decide to take the law into their own hands, then they should be dealt with in accordance with the law.
The management of the KNUST has decided to withdraw the certificates of former students who took part in the riot on campus.
This was revealed by the Head of University Relations, Daniel Norris Bekoe in interview with Alfred Ocansey on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3, Friday August 19.
“We will revoke their certificate, we awarded the certificate and alumni caught involved in this will have the certificate revoked,” he said.
The University has also decided to make students at the Katanga Hall pay for the cost of repairing the vehicles that were damaged during the riot.
Mr Norris Bekoe said Katanga students were the ones who stormed the Unity Hall and caused the mayhem during the procession as captured on a Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV).
He said “I can confirm that we are picking a lot individuals who took part in it, we have identified some of them and we are going to hand them over to the Police. Some of them came from the University of Cape Coast, Casley Hayford Hall, numbering 40.”
He added “The vehicles belonging to staff will be fixed and Katanga students will bear the cost, nine vehicles.”
Meanwhile, hall week and Student Representative Council (SRC) week celebrations at the KNUST have been suspended indefinitely.
Also, massing up of students leading up to ‘morale’ activities and procession been suspended indefinitely.
Random security checks of persons and vehicles entering and exiting the University campus are to be carried out.
These decision were taken by the the Executive Committee of the University on Friday August 19 following the disturbances that occurred on Thursday 18.
Calm returned to the campus of the KNUST after resident students of University Hall and Unity Hall clashed Thursday night.
It is unclear what sparked the violent clashes but reports say students of University Hall, popularly known as Katanga, embarked on a procession which ended up in the precincts of Unity Hall, popularly known as Conti(nental). The rivalry between the two halls has been age-long.
Students pelted stones at one another, resulting in vandalism of some properties including vehicles parked on campus.
Police moved in to restore calm while the Ashanti Regional Security Council (REGSEC) issued a warning to any persons or group of persons harbouring intentions to embark on reprisal demonstration on campus.
