Abla Dzifa Gomashie, a former Deputy Minister of Tourism, Culture and Creative Arts, has described as insensitive and retrogressive, the decision of the management of the Ghana Institute of Journalism to ask all its students who failed to meet the deadline for payment of fees to defer their course.

According to the Member of Parliament for the Ketu South constituency, the obvious challenges of the last two years from the coronavirus and the previous hardships caused from the financial sector clean up should be reasons enough for the management of the school to be more considerate.

"I find this directive insensitive and retrogressive. It is most unfair to your students," she wrote.

Management of GIJ issued a directive on Tuesday, March 24, 2021, in which it directed that students who had paid their fees beyond a given deadline were to defer their course to the next academic year.

The release which came in the late hours of Tuesday saw students of the institutions take to various social media platforms to express sentiments on
the directive.

In a post on her verified Facebook page, Dzifa Gomashie explained that even for her, although she has and continues to pay fees of students, she has not always immediately had the monies for them.

"In the last 2 years, many people have suffered financially due to COVID19 and previously many people also suffered as a result of the so called "FINANCIAL SECTOR CLEAN UP" which saw a lot of people lose their jobs and money.

"As a former Deputy Minister, I paid school fees and sometimes I was unable to "cough" the money requested for immediately. As Member of Parliament I have many requests I am yet to answer or fulfill," she wrote.

She has therefore called on the school to change what she describes as a "draconian decision" and apply a "human face" to this decision.

"You must take the current peculiar circumstances (economic down turn) into consideration before giving this draconian decision. Have a human face. People are struggling!," she concluded.



Students of the Ghana Institute of Journalism have been on a collision course with management of the school in the last 48 hours with the students indicating that they will not stop until the decision is revoked by the school authorities.