The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) has rescinded its decision to have fee-defaulting students defer their courses for the academic year.

This follows the easing of the Student Credit and Debt Management Policy, which affected some 6,000 students of the university.

The University Relations Officer (URO), Dr Daniel Norris Bekoe, disclosed that affected students will be given the opportunity to sit the end-of-semester exams once they pay up 70 per cent of their fees and re-register their courses.

“We [KNUST] are a human institution and we have been listening to the pleas of many stakeholders”, the University said.

“If a student pays up, management is ready to look at it. So, those who have paid 70 per cent have gone ahead to register for their courses. Definitely, we are not interested in getting students out of the university but we have bills to pay”, Dr Bekoe said.

Dr Bekoe also disclosed that some of the students have started paying their debts after the university made the announcement to defer their courses.

The university announced that students who owed 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.