TTU: 826 students to repeat for non-registration

826 students of the Takoradi Technical University (TTU), who failed to register before 28th January 2020 would be repeated for the 2019/2020 academic year.

The Registrar of TTU, Moses McLean Abnory, addressing a press conference on Monday at the university said the deferment is as a result of the students’ failure to register within the negotiated time even when the permitted time for registration had expired.

The Registrar, however, refuted allegations that the deferred students were awaiting students’ loan since those who had paid nothing or less and come for negotiation were registered.

“It is not true that those alleged deferred students were as a result of non-payment of fees or delayed release of the loan. We want to put on record that those students were not deferred because they have not paid their fees but because they did not register. Our reason is that the University runs a fee policy of 75% payment and upon appeal from SRC to the University Council, the Council brought it to 50% payment in the first semester and the other half in the semester.”

“The University has it on record that some category of students who have not made any payment have registered. Some of such students are those who have applied for loans from the Student Loan Trust Fund, MP scholarships, Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies scholarships, NGOs scholarships after submission of scholarship award letters and due diligence from the university were allowed to register. So, it can never be that non-payment of loans by the STLF is the cause of the deferment. Please, leave government out of this matter. It is also interesting to note that some of the students deferred have made full payment of their fees and that they are not owing the university but they refused to register after telling them to do so.”

The TTU Registrar further said no lecturer, Dean or management member of the University would deliberately want to make life difficult for any student.

He said they arrived at the decision due to the managerial implications of the non-registration in the running of the university.

“Takoradi Technical University runs a semester system and cardinal to the running of the university is data on our students in the various faculties. Registration is a prerequisite demand for all students at the beginning of every semester. Bearing this in mind, according to one of the governing policies of the University, the Student’s Handbook Section (SHB) 10.30 states among other things ‘that every student must register and failure to do so means you are not considered a student of the university and therefore will be withdrawn,” he said.

“The Handbook has been given to every student and can also be obtained also from our website. Even on the website, students ignored and refused to download and read. Indeed, Ladies and Gentlemen, students’ registration provide useful data for planning, organising resources, lecturer theatre allocation and in fact defines our legal obligation with the students.”

While admitting a breach of the University’s regulation that require students to register within two weeks of reopening, the SRC President of Takoradi Technical University, Solomon Asegitagwa appealed to the TTU management to reconsider its decision.

“We admit it is a breach and are going to petition the University to pardon the students this time. While we do that, we also asked the students to let this be the last time since most affected students thought the management couldn’t implement this. Meanwhile, the SRC is working with management to resolve the issue immediately.”

The breakdown of the 826 students who have been deferred for the 2019/2020 academic year for not registering is as follows:

i. Level 100 B.Tech Top-up 3 ii. Level 100 HND 2 iii. Level 200 B.Tech (4yrs) 5 iv. Level 200 B.Tech 189 v. Level 200 HND 229 vi. Level 300 HND 322 vii. Level 600 (Masters) 6 viii. 100 Non-Tertiary 3 ix. 200 Non-Tertiary 67