The Concerned Students and Alumni of the University Of Education, Winneba wish to express our displeasure concerning the attitude shown by the management of the University led by the Vice Chancellor Rev Fr Prof Anthony Afful-Broni which has shamefully embarrassed our dear institution.
Also Read: Press Release: UEW July 2019 Congregation Postponed Indefinitely
The Vice Chancellor and his team cannot escape blame for poorly handling this situation. They knew and were also aware that, the congregation could not come on as scheduled but they kept quiet thinking a miracle could happen.
Management of the University from a grapevine source was told to postpone the congregation after meeting with government officials on Tuesday 16th July, 2019. They were made aware that in constituting a Council for an institution of higher learning, due diligence was required in order to get people who have the requisite knowledge and capabilities to help meet the vision and mission of such an institution.
Moreover, the President and the Vice President of the republic are currently not in Ghana to have forwarded a list of government nominees to the Council of State for scrutinization before any recommendations are done to enable the Minister of Education to inaugurate a new Governing Council as stipulated in Act 672 establishing UEW.
It is very unfortunate that the management of the University want the general public to believe that, it is the government that is frustrating the process. The Vice Chancellor and the Registrar of the University should be blamed for everything that has happened.
Why did the Vice Chancellor and his Registrar wait till 6pm on Friday 19th July, 2019 before announcing the postponement of the congregation at the time most of the graduands had arrived at Winneba purposely for graduation even though, they were asked to postpone the graduation on Tuesday 16th July, 2019?
Was it a ploy by the UEW management to blackmail the government to extend the mandate of the Prof Abakah led Council whose tenure ended on Wednesday 17th July, 2019?
Is it not ironical for the SRC to organise a Press Conference on Friday 19th July, 2019 asking government to constitute a Council so that graduation take place on Monday 22nd July, 2019?
Do they think constituting a Council is a child’s play?
In fact, we are really not surprised about the behaviour of the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar because the VC thinks Governing Council appointments is like his appointment which took just a week to be effected.
The Governing Council was in office for two years and were not able to appoint a Chancellor but were able to appoint a Vice Chancellor in one week. If there was a Chancellor, this embarrassment would never have taken place because the Chancellor was going to take over all the duties of the Council Chairman at the graduation ceremony.
The Concerned Students and Alumni of UEW wish to state categorically that, all parents, students, graduands and all stakeholders should not believe statements by the University shifting blame to the government but rather know that, it is the University management that has caused this mess and must be dealt with accordingly.
Based on this, we wish to create the indulgence of the incoming Council to relieve the Vice Chancellor and the Registrar of their positions for this singular and many acts of incompetence on their part that have brought our University into disrepute.
We want to end by saying that, we are not happy about what has happened and so we want to plead with graduands, parents, loved ones and all well wishers to exercise restraints for the psychological trauma they have gone through as well as financial losses due to this inconvenience even as we try to contribute our quota to resolve this incident and get the ceremony rescheduled.
Thank you
Long Live UEW…………
Long Live Ghana………
Victor Osei Agyapong
Concerned Students and Alumni (UEW)
0246484276
Kwaah Berchie
0242548965
Godwin Konadu
0244065676
Kwabena Boadu
0246218429
