Some 6,000 students of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology’s 85,000 population are to defer their courses for their inability to pay their schools fees in full.

The university announced that students who owe more than 70 per cent of their school fees were to automatically defer their courses by 7 April 2022.

Despite the affected students having been allowed to sit their mid-semester exam which started on 11 April 2022, those who still had not paid up after the first exam week were forced to defer their courses.

The University Relations Officer, Dr Daniel Norris Bekoe, said on Wednesday, 20 April that there was the need to “apply the fees policy this year which has been approved by the academic board and it is required that as an undergraduate student you must register your courses at the beginning of the semester and pay 70%.”

Despite a three-month window – February to April – for students to fully pay up their arrears, Dr Bekoe said: “A number of students are playing games with the University”. 

“For example, they use their school fees to buy Uber; others are setting up bakeries…while others are using it for betting, and we have evidence,” he told Accra-based Joy FM.