Tertiary Students to march on Akufo-Addo to press home demands

A coalition of students from the various public tertiary institutions are planning to present a petition to President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo pertaining to delays in the creation of Governing Councils responsible for graduation and certification.

They have served a notice and informed appropriate bodies on the intended march which is scheduled to take place on Friday, July 14. The students are presenting a petition to the president to ensure that councils responsible for awarding certificates are created to prevent the hardships that students go through during gradation and certificate collection.

It is the constitutional mandate of the president to form the governing councils in the tertiary institutions to ensure that the formed councils superintend graduations and certifications. The aggrieved students indicated that per the Presidential Transition Act 2012 [ACT 845], the Governing Councils of all public tertiary institutions had been dissolved by 7th January 2017 after the change of government and was obligatory on incumbent President Akufo-Addo to form another with promptness to aid seamless graduation but that has still not been done.

The students bemoaned that the absence of the mandated councils caused many difficulties including harassment from some banks pertaining to debts owed, threats of marriage collapse, broken homes and loss of credibility.

The students served a notice to the Accra Regional Police Command to inform them of their intended march to the seat of Government on Friday.

Some representatives of the students indicated that the presentation of the petition was going to be done by 11 A.M. they have all agreed to meet at Kwame Nkrumah Circle to begin the planned march to the Flagstaff House.