Law students at the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA) are boycotting online classes that Management of the school has devised as an alternative to physical classes amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
WhatsUp News has heard that the students think the makeshift arrangement, which came on stream two weeks ago, is expensive and exploitative as the cost of internet bandwidth is to be borne solely by students.
Under the arrangement, students are expected to receive lessons in the comfort of their homes via internet or a so-called e-learning scheme, but will have to buy the internet data required to access lessons themselves.
But the students are boycotting the idea saying the arrangement implies that they have to pay double for the cyber facility component of their already expensive school fees.
GIMPA Law students pay as much as Ghc7, 000 per semester and within this fee is a component that covers internet and cyber facilities provided by the school. The law students are demanding that the money they already pay for internet be used to fund the e-learning platform that GIMPA is introducing as stop-gap measure over Covid-19.
They have since been boycotting the e-learning program. WhatsUp News has heard the School’s Graduate Students, who pay over Ghc8000 a semester, may also demand that Management bear the cost of bandwidth for the e-learning program.
Meanwhile, the prohibitive nature of the e-learning program at GIMPA is replicated through other levels of Ghana’s Education, after Government directed schools to adopt e-learning with sweeping aplomb and no critical think-through.
At the Senior High School-level, students are similarly directed to access lessons online at home, but most students and parents do not have the means to afford computers and internet browsing costs.
Consequently, students from very modest backgrounds are unable to access lessons, while those who are fortunate to have well to do parents are able to access lessons.