ANUC STUDENTS AGAINST EXAMS IN TOTAL PERSONALITY DEVT (PAGE 11)

Story: A. Kofoya-Tetteh, Koforidua

STUDENTS of the All Nations University College (AUNC) in Koforidua last Friday embarked on a peaceful protest against the decision of the university authorities to conduct an examination in Total Personality Development (TPD), a course which is based on Christian ethics.
TPD, which involves topics on stress management, selection of one’s life partner and general character building and carries five per cent of the marks in every discipline, was hitherto a bonus for all those who attended morning devotion.
That, however, changed when the ANUC was affiliated to the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), which directed that students must be examined in TPD.
The students who converged on the campus at about 8 a.m., ended their protest after the Vice-President in charge of Academic Affairs, Professor Rose Joshua, and Mr Emmanuel Aware, the Registrar, asked their leaders to persuade them to go back to the lecture halls to enable the authorities to address the issue.
Throwing light on the issue, Prof. Rose Joshua said the university, which was being sponsored by the All Nations International Development Agency, an affiliate of the All Nations Full Gospel Church based in Toronto, was a Christian institution and that all its students were required to be equipped with Christian ethics that would enable them to be good professionals.
She said TPD was not an elaborate academic programme with course contents and that students only had to answer questions on what they heard at morning devotion.
“We were awarding the 5 per cent marks to students who attended morning devotion freely until the KNUST asked us to examine them and this is exactly what we are doing”, she said.
“Most of the students have already taken the examination and although all of them have gone back to their lecture halls, the authorities would do their best to resolve the issue”, she said.
Prof. Rose Joshua, however, indicated that TPD would not be withdrawn because parents and guardians had given it their blessing.
On the allegation that the period for taking their examination papers was too short, she said students only took one paper a day which, according to her, was normal.
She, however, said that the university had to reduce the semester by two weeks due to the organisation of the Africa Cup of Nations held in the country at the beginning of the year but that affected all the universities.
When contacted, executive of the Students Representative Council declined to comment.