Hundreds of freshers and some continuing students at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) have been left stranded on campus due to lack of residential facilities.
Some first years who reported to school on Monday, were forced to spend the night with friends in already crowded rooms while others put up with relatives outside the campus.
According to a reporter with KNUST’s Focus FM, Edward Oppong Marfo, some of the freshers who had traveled from many parts of the country, were unable to secure accommodation in any of the school’s traditional halls of residence due to the non-availability of space.
“All first year students were supposed to choose their rooms online to be given one of the traditional halls of residence; but this year, the number of first years admitted, exceeded the required capacity of the traditional halls, so some of the first years were forced to move outside of campus to look for hostels”.
Some of the affected students lamented they could not afford the charges for private hostels around the school which cost between GH¢ 2000 and GH¢ 3000 for an academic year.
Continuing students thrown out
Some continuing students resident in some of the traditional halls were ejected from their rooms after a “short notice” to make room for freshers. Reports say they were given assurances of a refund of their monies to enable them seek accommodation elsewhere.
SRC hostel facility project
Ahead of the commencement of the academic year, the Student’s Representative Council (SRC) of KNUST, had received payments from interested students who wanted to secure a place in a new hostel facility it was constructing with the hope of completing the project before the start of the school year, but sources at the school say students who had made the payments were being accommodated in a study room because the hostel facility had not been completed yet.
Management’s alternative arrangement A message purportedly circulated by Dr. Kofi Owusu Daaku, the Dean of Students to freshers, urged them to make payments of between GH¢1,000 and GH¢ 1,200 into a mobile money account to secure them a place in an alternative hostel.
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