It was a sight to behold during the University of Ghana’s 70th anniversary as Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors, Senyo Hosi flared up and jabbed management of the school for being sloppy with the organisation of the entire event.
The 70th anniversary Alumni Homecoming Weekend of Ghana’s premier university was expected to be epic considering the number of persons the school has produced since its inception. It however turned out that the event was arguably the least patronised on campus as a handful of the alumni attended just a few of the various activities lined up for the occasion.
Considering the resources at the disposal of the University, Mr. Hosi suggested that the institution demonstrated high level of irresponsibility with regard to the organisation of its anniversary.
Making a submission at one of the workshops, a furious and curious Hosi without mincing words wondered how a university of such calibre would record woefully low figures and fail to provide the needed logistics for the ceremony.
“This is the 70th anniversary. Can you imagine! University of Ghana!” he fumed. “What kind of communication went on to promote this programme? Meanwhile, we are supposed to have a marketing department at the Business School and a whole communication school. Look at the number of people here. This is a school of mediocrity. Look at the panellists. There is no table for them to even put their books and things.”
That was not all. Hosi further chastised the University for producing graduates who lack the ability to reason.
He said: “You must make people cease wanting to come for a degree. [You must make people] wanting to come for education and certain skills that make them viable in the future. Your children don’t have skills that make them viable for the future. They don’t have the thinking; they are robots. Even that robot, they can’t do it.”
In what appeared to be poke in the eye of lecturers who were on the high table, Hosi intimated that students are in that state because lecturers themselves are refusing to think.
“It starts with you guys as lecturers. It starts with you being the thinkers. You guys are not thinking. Respectfully, no thinking is going on here,” he jabbed.
In response, the Director of Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research, Prof. Peter Quartey said contrary to the claim, lecturers do think.
“Senyo, we are thinking. We think,” he posited. “We are thinking, except that the large numbers sometimes doesn’t help. That’s number one. Two, we also have a crop of students who do not read.”
