The Akrokeri College of Education in the Ashanti Region has been closed down following student rioting. The riots are in response to attempts by authorities to compel students who failed in certain subjects to leave school with the option of returning next year in September to re-sit the papers.
This is in connection with the new directive from the new examining body, the University of Cape Coast, compelling all students to write elective mathematics as a compulsory subject but with no alternative courses. Previously a technical discipline or any other general course could serve as an alternative.
This is the second riot in a college of education in a week over the same issue of resitting failed exams following similar incidents at the Mampong Technical College of Education.
According to the Principal of the Akrokerri College of Education, Dr. Emmanuel Nyamekye, the decision to close down the school is a precautionary measure taken to prevent any serious damage to property on the campus. “They were becoming very rowdy, very boisterous and we felt that if we should allow them to stay for another night we may problems on our hands because they attempted burning the dining hall and he assembly hall.”
He added the protesting students were disrupting the other students saying “they wouldn’t attend lectures and students who were prepared to attend lectures were physically prevented from doing so.”
