KNUST Admin responsible for continuous clashes on campus

26 Aug KNUST Admin responsible for continuous clashes on campus

A lecturer and social commentator, Collins Kankam Kwarteng (PHD), has posited that the University Administration of KNUST is to be blamed for the many clashes that occur between students of the University and Unity Halls in recent years.

Speaking on the popular radio program Nyansapo on OTEC FM in Kumasi, he laid out the genesis of the perennial clashes to the action the University authorities took in 2009 during the hall week celebration of Unity Hall. During the said incident, the University administration provided armed police and army personnel to occasion members of Unity Hall to break into University Hall and ransack various property of the latter. There was no disciplinary action taken against the culprits of this act either by the school authorities or the police. Since then members of the University Hall do not trust that there is any justice and/or fair treatment when matters of peace and security come to the fore on campus. Thus we have an environment on campus where students, collectively or individually, feel they have to defend themselves whenever there’s a confrontation between parties.

These clashes inure to the administrations benefit in that it provides a diversion from the clear mismanagement of the university – from infrastructure to quality of academic endeavour which has plummeted in the last decade or so. Dr. Kwarteng stated that when such clashes arise, it divides the student front in confronting these very important issues that directly affect the very essence of a university education.

Dr. Kwarteng further shared that University Administration should concede that their policy of “Out-Out-Out-In” that has been implemented in the halls of residence further exacerbate these student clashes as the cultural and historical context of the rivalry between halls is lost and/or reduced to brawn instead of brains as was prevalent in the earlier years of the university.
Nyanspo on OTEC FM 3:45:00 start