UPSA: We are professional students, it must reflect in our dressing – Fmr WOCOM

The immediate past Students Representative Council Women’s Commissioner at the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA), Hilda Nyarkoa Bekoe, has sided with management's call to female students to dress decently when on campus.

Hilda Bekoe’s reaction comes amidst backlash that the school has faced following a caution from the University’s Vice-Chancellor.

According to her, the school is teaching professional courses, hence the need for its students to also dress in a very decent manner.

“The aim for introducing such a policy into the school was to allow the students to grace the image of the school as in terms of professionalism. We want to instill some value into the students. If I say value, I’m not talking about the broad values in general, but the values of the school, which is professionalism and integrity in the students,” she said.

Speaking with Univers news, she added that, the imposed restrictions on some student’s dress code, has already been in existence for the past three years.

“It’s not something very new because the dress code was introduced when we were back on campus, like three years ago. And the dress code that was introduced was that students must dress official to class on Mondays. That is the UPSA code to dress professionally with a tie. So dress code is not something new to UPSA now,” she added.

She further, urged all Universities in the country to adopt the dress code directive into their policies.

This she believes will minimize the level of indecent dressing in the country and will also allow the youth to appreciate the values of dressing decently.

“Yes, it is something that I will recommend. You know the issue of decency is becoming something in our generation. And you know, we want to feel comfortable and we want to do whatever pleases us. But we also live in a society where values are promoted and appreciated. Even when you go to certain companies they have the way they dress and so in order to fit in that company you have to dress in a way that will fit their culture. So if we are able to learn such things from our educational institutions, it will help us when we get to the bigger world out there,” she said.

During the 2021 matriculation ceremony, which was held on Friday, February 12, the Vice-Chancellor of the University Prof. Abednego Amartey announced a directive following his observation that indicates that some first-year students wear “very inappropriate dresses” on campus.

According to him, this is against the professional ethics of the University.