The Vice Chancellor of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) is threatening to convert the two male halls of the University into mixed halls.
According to Professor Otoo Ellis, the leadership of the University will be forced to embark on this quest if students of these halls break any more rules of the University.
In recent years, both halls have developed bad blood against each other which has resulted in some unnecessary casualties on few occasions.
For a rivalry which seemed healthy and friendly in previous years, many fear to involve themselves in any of their activities because it turns violent anytime they meet.
These practices have not only affected only them but other persons and social activities in the University.
On two occasions, the annual debate competition by the National Union of Ghana Students have truncated because of the two. Notable is the May clash between the two halls that led to the rustication and arrests of some students.
Leaders of these halls were subsequently denied of graduation as a result. The situation has resulted in the University Authority cancelling the hall week celebrations of particularly the University Hall (Katanga) on several occasions.
But as they start to celebrate this year’s “Hall festival as they call it, the Vice Chancellor paid them a visit. It was part of the first ever tour by the Vice Chancellor to the various halls of residence in the University.
The exercise is to have a direct contact with the students, get their views and complains in order to make the University the best of places for them. The curiosity of one student led him to ask the VC about a rumour in circulation that both male halls could be changed into mixed.
Professor Elis was very candid to answer that the University has already drafted processes on paper and left for stakeholders to consider it. He did not hasten to add that the decision could only be ignited if both male halls (Unity Hall and University Hall) break anymore rules of the University.
This becomes the second time a University has threatened to convert a male hall into mixed after the Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana went through similar fate when they were purported to have misbehaved in the presence of the chancellor, Kofi Annan. But for the intervention of some prominent old Vandals including the then Mr. John Mahama, it would have been mixed by now.
