General News of Monday, 10 December 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-12-10
The SRC met with the school’s management to address students’ grievances
An intended demonstration by some students of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA),over management’s refusal to allow students who had not completed the registration process to sit for their end of semester exams has been called off.
SRC President of GIMPA, Joseph Osei Mensah, indicated that the demonstration was called off after the SRC met with the school’s management to address students’ grievances.
“There will not be a demonstration today on campus. There has been an engagement between the leadership of the SRC and management of the Institute for a reconsideration of those students who could not register and the condition will be that they would have to pay a penalty.”
“The penalty is; if you happen to be among those students who have not registered at all, then you are paying a penalty of GHC 600, but if you happen to register provisionally but you have not made full payment then you are paying a penalty of GHC 300.
The students had threatened to demonstrate against management of the school should they fail to re-open registration to make them eligible to partake in the examinations.
The SRC President had however indicated that they were not in support of the demonstration as they did their best to assist the students.
He had indicated that students failed to pay their fees to register before the extended deadline for registration.
“There is agitation building up on campus due to registration issues. On Monday we start the examination and per the academic board decision, if you fail to meet the deadline, you cannot be part of the examination. There was a deadline for students to meet and as SRC, we mitigated and we got an extension for students to do the registration. There was also a subsequent extension. After that deadline some students continued to pay their fees in anticipation of another deadline but management says they want to instil some sanity and for that reason, they will not open the online system,” he explained.
Joseph Osei Mensah however said the SRC will continue to engage authorities of the school for a possible 24-hour window for affected students to register.
“As much as we sympathize with the students, I am not in support of the demonstration. At this point, what we can only do is to call on the authorities in charge to at least give some allowance, maybe 24 hours, open the site for the students to register, but the demonstration will not come from the SRC,” he said.
A similar challenge arose last week at the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) where some students were prevented from taking their end of semester exams because they were unable to register before the deadline.
The development resulted in a peaceful protest that saw management give the affected students a new opportunity to register.