GHANAIAN TIMES

The Times reports that students of the University of Cape Coast (UCC) yesterday threatened to pack bag and baggage and leave for home by tomorrow if by then the university authorities have not lifted a ban on the use of certain electrical appliances in the halls of residence. In a front page story headlined: Cape Vars students boycott lectures...Over ban on electrical appliances", the Times says besides demanding the immediate lifting of the ban, the students are calling for a drastic reduction in examination and other service charges introduced by the university at the beginning of this academic year, before they resume lectures. The students' action, the paper says, began early in the morning. Clad in red, they mounted road blocks on campus, held placards and chanted slogans. The lecture halls remained virtually empty, bring academic life to a halt while the way to the main administration building was blocked by the angry students. The Times says in an interview with the students on the immediate cause of the demonstration, the president of the Students' Representative Council (SRC), Mr. Henry Agyeman Prempeh, said the student leadership learned that the university authorities were planning to conduct an exercise in the morning to look for the prescribed gadgets in the various hall and confiscate them. Mr. Prempeh maintained that an outright ban on the appliances, including fridges, television sets, cookers, microwave cookers and sound systems, would bring untold hardships to the students. The president said the SRC had no alternative than to mobilize the students to embark on the action to show their disapproval and force the authorities to abandon the exercise. GRI