The dark stories of some graduate students in Ghanaian universities

She stormed the corridors of the department at the university. Clutching in her right hand a bound document. It was the third time in the week she had been to the department in search of her supervisor who had been hard to get hold of. She met him halfway to his office and greeted him, but he muted his response. They had a short exchange, barely audible and so no one within an ear shot heard what they said to each other. Then she blurted out. “I’m tired of you,” and threw the document to the floor and literally flew out of the building. She went away, never to return. That’s how an ambitious woman gave up on her dreams for a graduate degree at this Ghanaian university.

She was 36 years old. Let’s call her Akosua Dentsi. She had always dreamt of studying for a graduate degree in food science, after a first degree in agricultural science. But the two-year Master of Science programme had dragged on into the third year, with no possible end in sight. Akosua had spent considerable amounts of her savings, a good chunk of that from soft loans she took from her employers for her studies. Her employers were magnanimous enough to have granted her a two-year paid leave to pursue the programme. But when she didn’t complete, she had to return to work, while she worked to finish her thesis.

Akosua, like most graduate students of some universities in Ghana have similar harrowing stories to tell about how their supervisors treat them.

“Look at you. You can’t even write,” a professor of economics bellowed at his Mphil candidate. It was the fourth time the dejected student was submitting the second chapter of his thesis.

With his face cast down, looking morose, Appiah Dankwa tried to say something. “Shut up,” the professor shouted. “Now get out of my office,” he ordered the already humiliated student.

Appiah was in his fourth year of the two-year programme. His friends who had admission in US universities had completed their Master’s degrees and have moved on to their PhD programmes. But Appiah is yet to complete his thesis for the Master’s programme. He was a good student. It was the reason one of his professors encouraged him to pursue the Master of Philosophy in Economics programme. But unfortunately, that professor had died. He had hoped to supervise Appiah, but death ensured that didn’t happen.

John Agbenya had never shed tears before anyone. He has always been known as a strong man. Not even when his dearest uncle died, did he shed a tear. The uncle had raised him like his own son, and he had been raised to believe that a man should never cry, no matter what. But here he was. Sitting in front of his supervisor – whom he had to chase for three months, because he was mostly busy or unavailable to attend to Agbenya, even after they have scheduled to meet.

The supervisor had run his red pen from the left to the right side of the pages of the work he had come to discuss with him, cancelling everything Agbenya had written. He had spent three straight sleepless nights to complete the literature review which his supervisor has now rejected. As he walked out of the office, tears streamed down his cheeks.

Tekyi Akomfah was one of six Master’s students in that programme. He had been able to raise considerable funding from his good friends who believed in him. So for Akomfah, funding for his Master’s programme was not a problem, but his supervisor was. Akomfah, knowing that, devised a strategy to overcome what he had become so familiar with on that campus ever since he was admitted. He was not to become a victim, he assured himself, otherwise, how was he to explain to his generous friends? How could he look them in the face and tell them he couldn’t complete the two-year programme because of a supervisor who was highly respected in the university community and country, but was never available to discuss his thesis.

Akomfah had befriended one of the brilliant PhD candidates in the department. He seemed very smart and well accustomed with the university’s horrible culture in how supervisors treated most of their graduate students, otherwise, how else did he survive as a PhD candidate?

Kwesi Payne has almost finished his PhD thesis. He endured the drudgery and humiliation; and was focused on actualising his dream. While some of his mates had dropped out of the programme, Payne had persisted. It was to Payne that Akomfah turned to for help. He knew he would need his deep insight and knowledge of how things worked and also depend on his dexterity to navigate the dark alleys of graduate studies in that university.

He contracted Payne to supervise his thesis. He paid Payne handsomely. So by the time Akomfah had had the fortune of meeting his supervisor, after chasing him once when he heard he was attending a wedding on campus, but he refused to grant him audience.

Luckily for Akomfah, Payne’s supervision was helpful. With barely two months to the deadline for submission of the thesis, Akomfah ambushed the supervisor at a staff meeting. When he came out of the meeting he seemed to be in high spirits. Akomfah met him with his thesis, already approved by the affable Payne. When the professor glanced through, he was impressed. Having satisfied himself, he noted a correction on page 10. Akomfah’s eyes lighted up. He knew he had gone through.

He went back home and quickly did the corrections and started yet the hunt to meet his supervisor again for the final determination of his thesis. Determined to submit the thesis on time so he would graduate on schedule, when he was done with his work, he did everything to get the professor to sign. He accosted him on a football park one early Saturday morning, when he had gone to play with his fiends, as he does every now and then.

He didn’t immediately agree to grant him audience. But at this point Akomfah has become adept at dealing with his supervisor. And that morning he was lucky to have caught him in one of his pleasant moments. One of the professor’s colleagues asked him what was going on, and he playfully said, this student has been harassing him to sign his thesis. “If you are satisfied with the work sign it for him,” his colleague said.

The professor moved to his car. Opened the front door. Picked up a pen. Then moved to lean over the car booth. After 10 minutes of skimming the pages, he seemed satisfied, and he signed the thesis. That was how Akomfah became the only student in his class to graduate that year. His five other colleagues had to wait for another year to see if they would be able to graduate.

The stories narrated here are true, but the names and actual incidents have been changed to protect the students from reprisals, because some of them are still struggling to complete their programmes.

By Emmanuel K Dogbevi
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