No one has right to permanent accommodation on UG campus – Prof. Gyampo

A Senior lecturer at the Political Science department of the University of Ghana, Professor Ransford Gyampo has said no student has the right to stay in their traditional hostels permanently.

According to him, students are allowed to stay in allocated hostels only in their first year at the university.

“The In-Out-Out- Out Policy has been there for a while now,” he said.

“With the large number of students accepted into the university annually, the space available is not enough to accommodate all of them. The government has not provided enough money for the expansion of the accommodation. Due to this, no one has the right to permanent accommodation on campus,” he said.

He added that due to limited accommodation space, the ejection directive will affect continuing students from other halls in the future.

“The ejection directive is a policy we intend to affect all other halls of residence but due to fear of any unforeseen incidents from these violent clashes, we decided to start with the two halls [Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth halls].”

He revealed that the majority of continuing students from the two halls facing ejection have paid fees and agreed to stay in the non-traditional halls allocated to them.

“The policy indicates that only level 100 students will be allowed to stay in the Mensah Sarbah and Commonwealth halls. Continuing students have been moved to the UGEL hostels.”

“Currently about 1250 out of 1300 students of the two halls have paid their fees and have agreed to stay in the hostels allocated to them by the school.”

Prof. Gyampo disclosed that despite agitations from the Old Vandals Association on the ejection directive, there has not been an official meeting between them and the school authorities on the issue.

“Old Vandals Association have not officially reached out to the school on the recent happenings,” he said on Asempa FM’s Ekosiisen Show.

He urged the Old Vandals Association to officially reach out to school authorities for dialogue and how the issue can be resolved.

On January 3, Old Vandals Association gave the Management of the University of Ghana a one-week ultimatum to rescind its decision to eject continuing students from the Commonwealth and Mensah Sarbah halls.

They threatened to explore alternative means to force the hand of the university council should they refuse to adhere to their request.