Takoradi Polytechnic talks end in deadlock

Takoradi, June 20, GNA - Talks between the Takoradi Polytechnic Council and the Ghana National Union of Polytechnic Students (GNUPS) held on Tuesday at Takoradi ended in a deadlock.

The talks, the third since June 3, this year, started around 0900 hours and ended at 2100 hours without any possible solution. It had therefore been postponed until a suitable date was found. Ghana News Agency (GNA) investigations revealed that whereas the Council and GNUPS had failed to reach an amicable solution, some students of the Polytechnic had expressed their frustrated over the continual closure of the school.

Mr Eric Kelvin Elikem Kotoko, Coordinating Secretary of GNUPS in an

interview with the GNA on Wednesday alleged that students of the Takoradi Polytechnic were not safe and should not go to the school even if the Polytechnic Council re-opened the school. He said presently, GNUPS was liasing with the Minister of Education

Sports and Science, the Attorney General and other stakeholders in education to facilitate the release of students presently facing criminal prosecution in a Sekondi District Magistrate's court for rioting with offensive weapons.

He accused the Council for failing to comment on the arrest and prosecution of some of the students of the school. GNUPS and students of the Takoradi Polytechnic jointly declared an indefinite boycott of all academic work at the Takoradi Polytechnic campus with effect from Thursday May 31.

They also called for the immediate dismissal of the Principal, Dr. Samuel Obeng-Apori and accused him of "being incompetent, arrogant and autocratic".

They said a publication in the May 23 edition of the Daily Graphic newspaper that students in the school were "a bandit of drunkards, smokers, rapists and sex maniacs, apart from being untrue had portrayed the incompetence and lack of control over the school as a Principal".

GNUPS also accu sed the principal and the Council for fixing fees without the involvement of the SRC. They also alleged that the Principal used duress to compel the SRC vice president to resign and had taken-over SRC functions and abetted the mismanagement of the students funds.