The University of Cape Coast in the Central Region is considering a ban of beauty pageants and health walks among other events which have become a part of hall week celebrations.
Public Relations officer of the University, Major Baa Bentum (retired) who disclosed this to TV3 said the University is streamlining hall week celebrations on campus with the view to eliminate all aspects that have the potential to spark violence.
“…We are streamlining the hall week itself with certain things being expunged from the whole programme. Things that have the tendency and potential to result in violence. Health walks, beauty pageants and the likes. We want to internalised it so that it is contained within in the hall so that you don’t have the excuse of going to another hall,” he told TV3’s Spencer Boateng Mensah.
“Everything is now going to be done within the confines of a particular hall,” he added.
The decision comes on the back of acts of vandalism recorded last Friday at the Ogua Hall of the University which resulted in the destruction of property and injury to some students.
Students from the Commonwealth Hall of the University of Ghana, Unity Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology as well as those from the Atlantic Hall of the University of Cape Coast clashed with those at the Ogua Hall of the same University.
The Ogua Hall students were said to have prevented those from the three halls who were attending the hall week of Atlantic from entering their hall, leading to the riot.
Already, the school has postponed two hall week celebrations of the Ogua and Casely Hayford halls to allow adequate security measures to be put in place.
Major Betum told TV3 a discplinary committee has been set up to look into the incident to identify those involved and the appropriate punishment to be meted out to them to serve as deterrent to others.
“We have set up a disciplinary committee to look into it and those whom deserve to be punished will be punished to serve as a deterrent to likeminded people so that they will not dare do that,” he said.
Already, a total of 22 students are assisting the Police in its investigations into the case. They have been to the Police twice; Wednesday and Thursday.
They include hall executives and organisers of the hall week, Maj. Bentum told our correspondent.
Maj Bentum said security have been beefed up at the University campus, noting that calm has been restored and life returned to normal
“As you can see for yourself, life is calmed, everything is going on the way it should. We’ve also beefed up security; the police are here to assist to ensure that nothing untoward happens. I can say with all confidence that life is back to normal on campus,” he said.
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