UEW-COLTEK : Management punishes Graduands for ‘Misbehaving’ during the 22nd Congregation

For acts deemed to be unbecoming of graduating students of a University of high repute like the University of Education Winneba (UEW), the University’s Governing Council has withheld for three months, certificates of business students from the College of Technology Education, Kumasi (COLTEK) of UEW.

At graduation ceremonies which are customarily graced by Top Management of the University, Members of Convocation and invited guests including Traditional Leaders, Clergymen and Political Heads, the highest level of comportment is required of graduands in order to guarantee orderliness and smooth running of the traditionally structured processes. By practice, all graduands are expected to remain quiet and seated until otherwise invited do an activity in the course of the ceremony. They are also expected not to move away from the venue until the ceremony ends and those on the high table have recessed.

However, students of the Faculty of Business Education (FBE) at COLTEK behaved with reckless abandon during the first day of the 22nd Congregation of the UEW held at COLTEK. Once they were invited to receive the graduation scroll and shake hands with the Council Chairman, Prof. Emmanuel Nicholas Abakah, the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Rev. Fr. Prof. Anthony Afful-Broni and other Top Management Members, they started leaving the ceremony grounds, some sauntering, others scurrying and others still doing so stealthily in utter disregard for all the dignitaries at the ceremony.

In fact, not even the repeated cautions by the Registrar of the University, Surveyor Paul Osei Barima Esq. could appeal to the graduating students to turn away from the recalcitrance as they appeared the more interested in either rushing for their certificates at designated places or to pose for the cameras with friends and family outside the ceremonial grounds.

The unfortunate situation which threatened to blight the beauty of the ceremony continued until the space allocated for the FBE students became conspicuously empty. Therefore, in order to prevent a reoccurrence of such embarrassing situation, the Governing Council of the University slapped the sanction on the FBE graduands with a stern caution to all students to play according to the University’s tenets of discipline and orderliness at all official ceremonies.