GIJ students have been going through a bit of drama these days.
In a public university with such a comparatively small number of students, there seems to be a lot of on-campus drama.
Most of the recent drama had been about the uni’s graduation of the 2016/2017-year group.
First, there was concern about the authenticity of the graduation list after it was found out that the graduating classes had been wrongly assigned to students. Some of the people on the graduation list were also rumored to have not completed the academic requirements to qualify them for graduation.
The university’s rector, Dr Wilberforce Dzisah, later confirmed in an interview that some of the students who had failed their exams have been mistakenly added to the list.
Then there was the issue of whether the graduation ceremony will ever take place. Due the absence of a governing council, the graduation was postponed several times.
However, as the university finally holds its graduation today, about 150 students could be in deep trouble if they fail to show to the congregation.
GIJ has threatened to dismiss 150 students who are currently reading degree programmes because they are allegedly breaking an agreement with the university.
Diploma students at GIJ can continue with a degree programme right after school without waiting for their diploma certificates. Previously, the diploma students would have had to complete their national service and obtained their GIJ diploma certificate before applying for a Top-Up degree prorgramme at GIJ.
The university made changes to its policy to admit diploma student who are awaiting their GIJ diploma certificates.
However, it turns out that, majority of those students have decided to skip their diploma graduation ceremony, which is being held today.
“In order to escape the possibility of having their admissions withdrawn, Top – Up students who completed diploma in GIJ earlier this year are entreated to pay for their graduation gown and certificates or risk withdrawal on the bases of no Diploma certificates,” a GIJ SRC statement said.
If the students fail to show up today, that means they have not graduated GIJ which will not qualify them to pursue their degree programme.
