Reports indicate that the Governing Council of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) will be sworn into office today.
The about six new members will be joining the remaining nine members, including representatives from the unions who will however not be sworn in since they are already members of the council, and therefore there is no need swearing them in again according to reports.
This means that the same representatives from the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), Prof E.K. Fokuo, the Tertiary Education Workers Union (TEWU), Mr Charles Arthur and the Students Representative Council (SRC), Kevin Sah will be on the governing council.
KNUST has 15 members forming the Council, four of which are government representatives.
Following the impasse and the subsequent announcement of the dissolution of the council with the appointment of an Interim Council (IMC), which was opposed by the unions and the Chancellor, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, the government has decided to change its four representatives.
The representatives from the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE), Dr E. Baffoe Bonnie and the Conference of Heads of Assisted Senior High Schools (CHASS), Alhaji Y.A.B. Abubakar have also been changed.
The university has been closed since Monday, October 22, 2018, following a violent demonstration by the students.
Background
On October 22, this year, there was an outbreak of violence and destruction of property following a demonstration of students of KNUST campus in Kumasi in the Ashanti Region.
Following that, the Ashanti Regional Security Council (REGSEC) took a decision to shut down the university and also imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew on the university campus.
The students, who went on a peaceful demonstration against the ‘tyrannical’ style of the university administration, turned violent, leading to the massive destruction of property worth about Ghc1.7million.
The demonstration was also intended to express grave concern over the use of force by the Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Kwasi Obiri Danso, to cow them into submission.
Before the demonstration, 11 students of the University Hall (Katanga) who had participated in the usual entertainment programme (otherwise called moral session) of the hall on Friday, October 19 were allegedly brutalised and arrested by the university’s internal security men and handed over to the KNUST Police Station, where they were detained.
Moral sessions are processions of students, usually on campus, amid singing and dancing, and are very common with the all-male halls of residence.
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