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In This Issue...Links to the News:
Friday, March 11, 2016
State Of The Nation’s University
Campuses
A GNA feature by Rex Annan
Accra. Nov. 15, GNA - In recent years, universities and
institutions of learning in Ghana that are supposed to be
churning out social, political, economic and religious
leaders for the country have turned out to be places where
vices are perpetrated.
It is on record that moral decadence is high on the
university campuses.
There was the recent case of assault on a musician who had
gone to one of the campuses to perform. There was also the
case of examination malpractice and fraudulent admissions at
some of the universities.
This can be blamed on the new sexual freedom, development in
pregnancy prevention methods, legalization of abortion,
break down in family, decline in parental control, media
promotion of cheap values, sexual stimulation in music and
dancing and dressing that promotes sexual arousal and
immoral thoughts in men, sex education and love for money.
As the case stands on the campuses at present, one may not
need to browse pornographic sites on the Internet or read
literature that depicts pornography. Pornographic sites
exist in the lecture halls, hostels and everywhere on the
campuses through, "spaghetti", "fish skirt", "silted pants,"
palazzo pants", "mini-skirts", "cupsy tops" among other
things.
This situation is connected with falling educational
standard, exacerbated by various forms of academic
dishonesty and examination malpractices.
There is also so much unrest on the various campuses. The
unrest takes different dimensions, cutting across the entire
campus life of the institutions, thus making them unsafe for
human habitation. The unrest includes students' riots,
student boycott of classes; strike on the part teaching and
administrative staff and other confrontational positions
taken by either students or staff of the institutions.
In some cases of unrest, lives are lost and property worth
millions of cedis destroyed. Some of the institutions are
closed down for very long periods, thus resulting in loss of
valuable teaching and learning hours. There is so much fear
and trepidation. The institutions, which normally should be
quiet or serene for teaching and learning, are turned to
almost battle fields without the military. Another cause of
campus unrest is occultism. The dictionary defines cult as
group of people that follow a system of worship, especially
one that is different from the usual and established forms
of religion in a particular society.
This is a most serious vice that permeates virtually
all-tertiary institutions in the country. Students rush to
become members of cults and secret societies because of the
wrong indoctrination that the organizations have the power
to improve their academic performance in the various
institutions and they will pass their examination without
putting in the needed efforts.
Closely linked with campuses' unrest is lack of respect for
constituted authorities on the part of members of
institutions. It is no longer news that corruption and
unethical practices prevail in tertiary institutions.
Wherever one looks disaster seems to be looming and the
earlier measures were instituted to curb the excesses on the
campuses the better it would be for the nation.
For a start the blame game should stop. There should be
serious introspection to identify the root causes of the
unrest to uproot them.
The Government has been calling on educational authorities
to impose discipline but at the same time the new found
freedom is restricting the power of these authorities.
The case in point is the one the GNA reported recently
involving a student, who took the authorities of the Kwame
Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, to a
court that compelled them to lift arrangements they had made
to improve security at the campus. While this might be
hailed as an indication of the existence of the rule of law
in the country, it, nevertheless punches holes in the cloak
of authority of the institution.
There is the need to appreciate the negative and destructive
impact of these vices on individuals, family and the nation.
All hands should be on the deck to fashion out programmes to
deal with the root causes rather than symptoms of these
vices.
Let us move a step further not only to churn out a set of
social rules, which may be circumvented by the spiritually
un-regenerated but smart students, but by appealing to the
moral or spiritual worth of the individual.
Such a spiritual approach, this Writer believes would help
to get students to say no to evil and act right any where
they are.
GNA
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