A Cape Coast High Court has placed an interlocutory injunction on the end of semester examination of the Cape Coast Technical University (CCTU).
The university was on Thursday September 2, 2021 served with a notice of injunction by the Cape Coast High Court.
This was after 21 out of 43 students of the university sought an interlocutory injunction to be placed on the conduct of their examination, pending the determination of their substantive human rights application pending before the court.
The students all in their first year (supposed to be in second year now), according to their counsel, Mr Richard Kwesi Nkrumah-Amos, were given dismissing letters or letters of rustication on April this year based on their purported involvement in examination malpractices in last academic year.
The students filed the motion to restrain the university and its Academic Board as well as their agents, privies, workmen assigned to conduct the exams from doing so until the matter is settled in court.
The end of second semester examination for the 2020/2021 academic year begun on Monday, September 6, 2021.
The students are challenging the validity, legality and constitutionality of the decision by the CCTU and it’s academic board to rusticate them.
Nkrumah-Amos said the school regulations stated that the institution should investigate any such alleged malpractices and undertake sanctions not later than one month after the semester. That, he explained, this meant the affected students should have been punished not later than 2020.
The said punishment was in connection with the Cost and Business Accounting-PUS 144 and DPM 102 paper which was written in or was part of the papers for the end of the second semester examinations for the 2019/2020 academic year.
Re-write
He said after the university’s investigations, the said leaked paper was cancelled and fresh examinations conducted for them.
Mr Nkrumah-Amos said the students involved cooperated with the university in the investigations.
However, he said, after the investigations by the university’s Examination Malpractices Committee, the university did not communicate with any of the affected students.
The said students, he noted, came back to school, registered for the next academic year and attended lecturers regularly without any problem with the university’s management.
Wrote the examination
He said they wrote the mid semester examination without any problem which was marked by lecturers.
The affected students were given letters indicating they were either sacked or rusticated for a year.
He said while the affected students were writing their end of first semester 2020/2021 examinations, they were embarrassingly sacked from the examination hall.
He said though court had suggested an out of court settlement, the students said they no longer trust the management of the university to deal justly with them as the management had gone ahead to start the examinations in spite of the injunction.
Mr Nkrumah-Amos said it was worrying that the university had taken an entrenched position, adding that the students’ rights to education were being infringed upon.
He said the students would demand letter of understanding from the management until they would agree to an out of court settlement.
Meanwhile the legal officer for the university, Mr John Ben Assan said he was not ready to comment on the issue.
Parent
One of the parents of an affected student said the university should find a way to amicably resolve the issue in order to allow the students to continue their schooling.
He said the psychological trauma and intimidation from some of the authorities from the school was worrying, saying all relevant stakeholders must help resolve the case.
Source: www.graphic.com.gh
