KNUST has done nothing wrong denying best WASSCE student admission – Paul Adom-Otchere

Paul Adom-Otchere, Host of Metro TV’s Good Evening Ghana show says he sees nothing wrong with Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s (KNUST) decision in denying best WASSCE student admission to Medical school and rather commends the University for doing the right thing because the 19year old student failed his oral examination.

According to him, Ghanaians are overly criticising KNUST on this issue because universities all over the world conduct tests and interviews on students before admitting them into their institution. So if students fail to meet the selection criteria with or without a good grade, the university has the right to deny students admission to the programme they chose to offer.

He advised that our curricula be revised and support universities when they test students in other aspects by trying to present rounded students who come out to solve problems because they have potential knowledge in everything.

“Part of the reason of our 60 year old history with no problem solving situation is that our curricula has presented us and made us academic thinkers and we think only through the spectacles of academics. We don’t think about problem solving, we don’t think about changing the world, we don’t think about achieving outside the academic world and that has been a problem of this society”, he stated.

He urged Ghanaians to understand the processes universities take in admitting medical students because it has about three processes which one is the academic qualification Pius Kyere passed, the other is the examination stage and the last is the oral interview stage.

According to him, all candidates must pass through this stage because they school wants to produce doctors who are not only good in academics but also have general knowledge in everything.

Pius Kyere, who graduated from St James Seminary and Secondary School in the Brong Ahafo Region, scored straight As in all eight subjects, including his electives – Physics, Chemistry, Biology and Mathematics and emerged as the best student in the WASSCE examination.

Pius was shortlisted for an interview process for admission into the Medical School, but it seems he could not pass the oral examination.

Pius is currently reading his second choice programme, Doctor of Optometry, at the KNUST.