Pressure group, Occupy Ghana has described as illegal, the government’s order for the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) to step aside.
Occupy Ghana has also described the Interim Council instituted to manage affairs at the university temporarily as unconstitutional.
[contextly_sidebar id=”Bf3IjHEag34yQQWPRwYCmIE8eaMulOqi”]Professor, Kwasi Obiri-Danso (VC) was on Monday directed to hand over the administration of the University to the Pro Vice-Chancellor as part of moves to settle the recent controversies in the school.
This came barely a week when an interim committee was tasked to manage KNUST after the school was shut down indefinitely on Tuesday following violent student protests.
But in a statement issued by the pressure group, it said the grounds for constituting the interim committee and the subsequent sidelining of the VC were unfounded.
“We register our strong opposition to any attempts to replace the duly-constituted Council of KNUST with any other body in a manner that does not conform with the laws of the country, and then force the Vice-Chancellor to resign or step aside. It is our view that these acts by your two bodies, constitute an infringement of an affront to the law and the right to academic freedom recognized and protected under article 21 of the Constitution, and which is generally recognised to protect both university teachers and university administrators.”
Occupy Ghana mentioned that the National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) has no locus to make such an order because it contravenes a section of the NCTE Act.
“The directive by the NTCE for the VC to temporarily handover the day to day running of the University to the pro-Vice Chancellor, allegedly to allow the illegal Interim Council to operate is yet another illegal act in a stream of illegal acts by both the government and its agencies. The NCTE has no such power. This ultra vires and legally flawed directive have no basis in the NCTE Act, 1993 (Act 454), under which the NCTE is merely an advisory body to the Minister and tertiary institutions, and may also make recommendations and publish information on tertiary education. Surely this wrongly assumed power to issue such a directive cannot even fall under the omnibus clause that the NCTE may perform other functions that are incidental to its stated statutory functions.”
Stop interfering, it hinders academic freedom
Meanwhile, Occupy Ghana has sent strong signals to the ministry of education and the NCTE to stay away from the running of the KNUST as their constant meddling hampers the freedom to b enjoyed by academic institutions in the country.
“We respectfully urge both the Ministry and the NCTE to respect the law and the right of academic freedom, and stop interfering in the administration of KNUST. The Government’s role, if any, would and should be to maintain law and order on the campus and to facilitate discussions leading to an amicable resolution of the problems on the campus, and not to jump into the arena of conflict, become a party to it and thereby compound the problems. The Government should allow the law to work and for the duly constituted bodies to decide on what happens on the campus. That is the law and we fully expect of the Government and its agencies that if they are unhappy with the law, they may appeal to Parliament to revise it. Until then the government must obey the rule of law, however unpalatable that may be to it.”
–
By: Nii Larte Lartey/citinewsroom.com/Ghana