University closed following protests

The University of Ghana was closed and students ordered off campus on Tuesday following protests against a sharp increase in tuition fees, the official Ghana Broadcasting Corporation (GBC) reported. In a statement, the university's Executive Committee said students failing to vacate the campus would be considered trespassers and subject to eviction. Foreign students are being allowed to stay on campus but are required to produce identification on demand. The authorities said they closed the university after protesters destroyed university property and intimidated students who wanted to attend classes. University officials have also accused militant students of disrupting lectures, tearing up students' lecture notes, kidnapping and molestation. An associate professor of social sciences at the university, Emmanuel Gyamah-Boadi, told IRIN on Wednesday at least 50 percent of the students supported the protests. The latest protest, staged on Tuesday, was led by women, which was an unusual development, he said. The protests followed an increase in fees from the equivalent of US $120 to US $800 per year. The government decided to award bursaries totalling three billion cedis (US $ 1.1 million) to offset the hike, but the protesters want the amount increased to 13 billion cedis ($4.9 million). Gyamah-Boadi said the increase was justified because of the huge gap between existing resources and those needed to provide quality education, but that it should have been phased over about two years. "The development of an effective policy to overcome shortages is lacking," he said. These shortages include poor boarding facilities: five students share accommodation designed for one. This, Gyamah-Boadi said, is because student admissions have gone up sharply over the last five years without a corresponding increase in accommodation. Professors are poorly paid and teaching aids lacking.. Gyamah-Boadi said he received a net monthly salary equivalent to US $350 and taught courses to which no books were assigned. Pure sciences, he said, cost even more given the need to provide disposable material.