Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education, has urged university administrators to put an end to recent student disturbances on campus.
He claimed that while pupils who disobeyed established laws and regulations needed to be dealt with, they also needed to be counseled.
At a news conference last Friday in Accra, Dr. Adutwum made the statement while criticizing the behavior of University of Ghana and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) students.
“We are aware of the unrest at the KNUST and the University of Ghana. We regret hearing about these disturbances. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana and I spoke for a while so she could inform me of events.
We disapprove of the way in which the nation’s future leaders will conduct themselves.
“We urge the university administrators and the hall administrators to work together to put an end to these disturbances. The minister stated, “I think that they (students) need to be counseled and guided, but in the end, if they choose to take matters into their own hands, the universities should handle them properly.
Last Thursday afternoon at the KNUST, there were violent altercations between inhabitants of the University Hall (Katanga) and those of the Unity Hall (Continental), which resulted in the destruction of property.
Twelve students from both halls were hurt as a result of the fights. Additionally, 12 university employees’ personal automobiles were wrecked.
In a statement, the police stated that they were conducting an investigation in order to identify and apprehend those “behind these sad, senseless, and indefensible attacks” and bring them to justice.
Following the problems between the Commonwealth and Mensah Sarbah halls at the University of Ghana around two weeks ago, there were those between the University and the Unity halls.
Additionally, property was destroyed as a result of those disturbances.
Support
Dr. Adutwum emphasized the need for university students to have help and direction in order to understand the value of refraining from doing what had occurred in our various campuses.
We are thus expecting and praying that the university administration will grasp the situation and stop some of these actions. And I believe that will happen when we provide the young people with counseling, advice, reproof, and all those other things to assist them learn that using violence to solve problems is not a solution, he said.
