University of Ghana 
Registrar’s Office, 
Legon. 
Ref. No. HR. 30. 
5th May, 1978.

AT a meeting held in the morning of Thursday, 4th May, 1978, the Academic Board of the University of Ghana, recognising that in view of the conditions prevailing in the country generally and in the University particular, it has not been possible to carry on normal teaching since January 1978 in spite of several attempts by the University authorities to return the situation on campus to normalcy, resolved that:- 

(i) The University’s teaching activities for the Term should be formally suspended forthwith; 

(ii) students should be asked to go out of residence. 

2. It is necessary to indicate the events that have led to the above resolution. 
3. On 13th January, 1978, students of the University of Ghana organised a demonstration against the Government. The demonstration took the form of a funeral procession culminating in the cremation of an effigy at the main entrance to the University on Independence Avenue (Dodowa Road). The incident attracted police attention. Subsequent developments involving the arrest of some students and the capture of a policeman on guard duties at the Bank in retaliation by students retreating from the gates led to the invasion of the campus by police including some in armoured vehicles. That incident is the subject of a Committee of Enquiry appointed by the University. The panic generated by the police action led to the withdrawal from campus of the majority of students Consequently normal teaching stopped. 
4. The University authorities were able to come to agreement with the students and teaching resumed on 30th January for one week. On 5th February the police conducted a search on certain students for “subversive material.” Out of fear that the molestation of 13th January might recur, the students began to leave the campus, thus bringing lectures to a stop once more. 
5. Attempts by the University and the Secretariat of the National Council for Higher Education to get students back back to work were frustrated by a number of events, especially an announcement on 25th February that the Ministry of Education was taking administrative charge of the Universities with a view to ensuring that discipline in the Universities was brought into line with that in the secondary schools. 
6. By the end of March only a maximum of nine weeks of the scheduled nineteen weeks of teaching had been completed. The Academic Board decided that the session could still be saved by a rescheduling of the dates which would allow twelve weeks of teaching and revision before final examinations in July. 
7. Before the Third Term began on 14th April, the Ghana Association of University Teachers had indicated that out of sympathy with the Association of Professional Bodies which was protesting against the conduct of the referendum they proposed to withdraw their services. Since 14th April other developments including the arrest of various members of the University of Ghana have made it impossible for teaching to be resumed. 
8. The University Authorities, and the National Council for Higher Education have, at various times, appealed to the Ghana Association of University Teachers, the Students’ Representative Council and the Government to help restore conditions favourable for the resumption of normal teaching. These efforts have so far failed. In the circumstances, the Academic Board finds it necessary to announce a temporary closure while further efforts to restore normalcy proceed. However, research work and service functions normally undertaken by Senior Members as part of their assignment continue. 
9. New dates for the u finished business of the 1977/78 session and for 1978/79 will be announced in due course. 

(Sgd.) (E.A.K. Edzii), 

Registrar.