Old students living on campus can have negative and positive effect; clear policy needed on this – Apaak

Member of Parliament for Builsa South, Dr Clement Apaak has said a clear policy is needed to guide the tradition of old students still staying on campus.

In his view, past students who are still on campus can have negative or positive influence on the current students hence, this matter must be considered thoroughly.

Dr Apaak was commenting on the clashes that occurred between students of the Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth Halls at the University of Ghana and also what happened between students of the University Hall and Unity Hall at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).

With the KNUST in particular, the authorities have decided to withdraw the certificates of past students who were caught in the violence.

This was revealed by the Head of University Relations, Daniel Norris Bekoe in an 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.”

Speaking on the same show, Dr Clement Apaak who is also member of the Education Committee of Parliament said “This tradition of old students not moving on, staying in the halls certainly can have a positive and negative influence.

“If indeed the negatively influence, we believe is coming from old students staying on campus then there have to be a clear policies across board to ensure that no old students, either on Commonwealth or Sarbah has to be resident in any of the Hall.”

source:3news