The fate of students of Bolgatanga Nurses’ Training College is unknown as their tutors have declared ‘NO end of semester examination’ for them.
The end of first semester examination was scheduled for Monday November 11 but did not come off following a declaration by the tutors that they did not have the authority to conduct the examination since the embattled principal of the college has not been at post over a month ago and the fact that their concerns about mismanagement and misappropriation of the college’s funds by the principal have not been addressed.
It would be recalled that on October 10, 2017, tutors of the Bolgatanga Nurses’ Training College locked up the office of the principal, Awalu Bawa and threatened to resist any attempts to revert their action.
Their action followed investigations by the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) and the Bureau of National investigation (BNI) into alleged mismanagement and misappropriation of the college’s funds by the principal.
A day after the principal’s office was locked up, Rockson Ayine Bukari, Upper East Regional minister intervened and the office was reopened. The principal was subsequently invited, detained, interrogated and finally released by the investigative bodies and has since being reporting to the two bodies.
After his intervention, the regional minister stopped the principal from signing cheques and directed the regional health director to take charge of the management of the college. This action meant that no money could be withdrawn from the accounts of the college.
Subsequently, the Ministry of Health invited four tutors of the college to Accra in October where they met with the registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Ghana to discuss the matter. Though details of that meeting were not available, we can however report that the ministry has not sent a representative to the college to try and find out its true state.
Our checks have revealed that tutors have carried out all their mandatory teaching responsibilities since the issue broke out until last Monday when they should have conducted the end of semester examination which they suspended indefinitely.
Students were deeply worried about the latest developments and called on the Ministry of Health, Ghana Health Service and the administrators of the college to try and resolve the matter as soon as practicable to enable them sit the examination.
“I’m quite worried because next semester, we have a lot of activities [because] we have to go to Ankafu and other things. So if they are saying we have to postpone the exams to next semester, then it becomes a burden on us. Everything we have learned, we have to go back and recall it before we come back and write next semester which is a waste of time and energy.” A male student lamented.
Another student said: “We want to go home and see what we can do. You know, in the next semester, we have some huge money that we are coming to pay – buying of handouts and those things so we have to go home and help our parents and those things.”
At the time this reporter visited the college on Tuesday at about 8:45am, some male students were seen playing football on campus while others including females were also spotted in groups chatting away the morning.
Meanwhile, when TopNews Ghana visited the regional health directorate Tuesday, the director was not available for comments.
Source: TopNewsGhana.com
