The Katanga and Unity Hall Alumni Associations are calling for the dismissal of the Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
They are appealing to president Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo to remove from post the Vice Chancellor of the University over the conversion of the two male halls to mixed sex halls.
Minister of State in charge of Tertiary Education, Prof. Kwesi Yankah recently applauded the move by the KNUST and urged other universities to emulate.
But speaking at a joint press conference in Accra today, President of the Katanga Alumni Association, Charles Dontoh condemned comments by Professor Kwesi Yankah over the conversion of male halls into mixed halls as it destroys the age-old tradition and brand of Katanga.
According to the alumni, the reasons given by the authorities are baseless and unfair.
They vowed not to relent but to resort to all available legal and acceptable means to ensure that the accommodation problems in KNUST are resolved in a better way.
“We as Katanga and Conti Alumni Associations shall not relent on our oars but shall continue to resort to all available legal and acceptable means to ensure that the accommodation problems on KNUST are solved in a better, more pragmatic and sustainable way,” Charles Dontoh stressed.
He added, “The case is in court… it’s not been thrown overboard at all. It’s just that an injunction was not appalled for the reason that the girls have been given admission letters already so they have to come. But that does not mean that the case is finished or permanent it’s just an injunction. The actual case is going to happen after the legal vacation is over.”
Management of KNUST among other things said, the conversion of the halls was to increase the number of female students in the study of Science and Technology by 40% and to protect activities of rapists and incidences of attempt to rape them by some malcontents living around the university.
This, according to management will also curb students’ riots and rowdiness on campus.
But the Katanga Alumni Association denied the allegations that the recent batch of students at the University have been notorious and attacking other female students thereby leading to bloodshed.
The Katanga hall is said to be have been built in 1963, with about 198 rooms in the main halls and 96 rooms in the Annex.
The president indicated that the increase of female students on campus can be seen as discriminatory as all the rooms which were to be allocated to the male students have been occupied by female students.
He said, “We indeed, have been pondering over how the KNUST management could increase the number of female students resident on campus without discriminating against the males, given that there have not been attempts to construct new Halls of residence for students.”
In earlier reports residents of Unity and University halls, [all male halls] embarked on a demonstration to register their disagreement to the university’s actions with the hope that “this arbitrary, discriminatory and knee-jerk solution will be but a short period of time.”
Members of the Alumni Association are also calling on the Vice Chancellor to rather address issues of sex for grades which is ongoing on campus instead of “wasting” time on converting male halls to mixed halls.
