Agric Students Threaten to Boycott Classes

By Jemima Esinam Kuatsinu

Students of five Colleges of Agriculture have resolved to boycott classes, when school resumes on February 8, until their allowances and other challenges have been addressed.

The resolution, according to the leadership of the Agricultural Colleges Students Union (ACSU) was to put pressure on the Ministry of Food and Agriculture (MoFA) to redeem the pledge it made to pay the allowances, among others.

The five colleges include, Kwadaso Agricultural College, Ohawu Agricultural College, Tamale Animal Health and Production College, Damango Agricultural College and Ejura Agricultural College.

They insisted that despite the negative implications of their boycott, they were justified in their demands, claiming that, "unlike the nurses and teachers, we are not guaranteed jobs; we need the allowances to survive."

President of ACSU, Tokoli Promise Buenortey, speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, said students of the various agricultural colleges felt neglected and had no access to government benefit.

He said the Union believed it would be better for students to stay home than to go back to their various campuses, "since politicians wants to collapse the agric colleges."

Mr Buenortey said agriculture had been the backbone of the nation yet government seemed not to have students of agriculture at heart, adding that, many final year students had dropped out of school "due to lack of finances to cover their overly expensive tuition."

He said several assurances from the MoFA to the students' body have not yielded any positive results, indicating that the government had not been sincere to them.

Mr Buenortey said they would only rescind their decision, if the government restored the allowances, feeding grants, and provision of buses and infirmary before February 8.

"If government deemed it right to restore allowances to teacher and nursing trainees, government must, as a matter of urgency, realise that the agric colleges deserve the same," he stated.

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