GIJ Bows to Pressure, Reopens Registration Portal

The Ghana Institute of Journalism has resolved to reopen its registration portal to allow students to pay their fees and register for their courses to enable them to partake in the end of semester exams.

The decision was taken after a meeting between student leadership at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

A joint statement, Monday issued on behalf of students and management said: “Management will open the online registration platform again for students to pay the required amount and to enable them to register. This window is for a period of three days with effect from Monday, December 3, to midnight Wednesday, December 5”.

This follows student protests Sunday as some students were barred from writing the exams because according to the management, they have not paid their fees.

Some of the students, however, disputed the claim. One student who spoke to Joy News said he had paid his fees in full but the “useless” portal would not open for him.

“My father paid all the fees himself at the beginning of the semester,” he fumed.

The protests led to police deployment to the school and subsequent cancellation of all Sunday’s papers. Students were asked to go home.

Monday’s statement added that “any student who encounters any challenges with the online registration should contact the Academic Affairs in the case of undergraduate and the Graduate Secretariat for graduate students accordingly”.

Read the full statement below:

Following the student protests and tense atmosphere on campus that led Management of the Ghana Institute of Journalism to reschedule the examinations of December 2, 2018, Management in a meeting with the leadership of the Students Representative Council (SRC) and Graduate Students Association of Ghana (GRASAG) made the following resolutions:

•           Management will open the online registration platform again for students to pay the required amount and to enable them to register. This window is for a period of three days with effect from Monday, 3 December 2018 to midnight Wednesday 5 December 2018.

•           Those who missed the opportunity to register because they failed to meet the fee requirements will only be allowed to write the exams if they pay the required amount and have duly registered within the rescheduled deadline of Wednesday, December 5th, 2018.

•           Students who are on GETFund scholarship and other institutional scholarships that pay directly to the institute will be allowed to register and write the remaining examinations on the production of an official letter from GETFund and the institutions concerned accordingly.

•           The papers that were scheduled on Sunday, December 2, 2018, for the undergraduate students will now be written on Sunday, December 16, 2018, and that of the graduate students on Sunday, December 23, 2018.

•           Students should take note that those who fail to pay the required percentage of fees cannot register, and as such will not be recognized as students of the Institute. New students were and are required to pay 80% of the fees in the first semester and the remainder in the second semester whilst all continuing students were and are required to pay a minimum of 60% in the first semester and the remainder in the second semester.

•           The graduate students were and are required to pay a minimum of 70% in the first semester and the remainder in the second semester.

•           It must be emphasized that the retake policy that Management is introducing is to take effect from next academic year i.e. 2019/2020 and not this semester as is being portrayed.

•           Students are hereby encouraged to take advantage of this intervention and duly register for their examinations which continue as scheduled by the timetable.

•           Meanwhile, the media reportage claiming that there is a policy that requires students to make full payment before registering is inaccurate and should be discarded.

Any students who encounter any challenges with the online registration should contact the Academic Affairs in the case of undergraduate and the Graduate Secretariat for graduate students accordingly.

Signed:

Rector, SRC President