Ololade Adeyanju & Citi News/
Chairperson of the anti-sexual harassment committee of the University of Ghana (UG), Dr. Margaret Amoakohene, has refuted allegations made against some lecturers of the institution cited in the BBC Africa Eye documentary.
Amoakohene told Ghana’s Citi News that there is no evidence in video that shows that the lecturers slept with the students to give them better grades.
Two of the university’s staff, a Political Science lecturer, Prof. Ransford Gyampo and a lecturer at the College of Education, Dr. Paul Kwame Butakor, were indicted in the ‘Sex for Grades’ video.
Both lecturers have however denied the allegations made against them, with Prof Gyampo also threatening to sue the BBC for defamation.
Amoakohene noted that although she agreed with the fact that it was a misconduct among the lecturers and thereby required further investigations, she disagreed with the “sex for grades” tag.
“If you look at the transcript that they added, there is no evidence of sex for grade. I agree that the lecturers misbehaved and so you will discuss these as unacceptable behaviours that should be investigated but there was no indication of sex for grades. In one case, it was about the national service placement. Who needs grades at national service? She completed and she was looking for placement,” she said.
She added: “In the other case according to the transcript, the lady approached him [Prof. Gyampo] and said she wanted him to be a mentor. She actually confirmed she wasn’t his student but asked that he mentors her. So where is the grade involved in this?
“You are able to discuss grades and sex when you find a lecturer who is dating his own students, and either unnecessarily giving them grades that they don’t deserve or marking them down because they have refused your advances. But in the two cases that are cited, I don’t see sex for grades.”
The BBC Africa Eye released an documentary on Monday which centered on cases of sexual harassment by lecturers in tertiary institutions.
To achieve this, the BBC sent undercover journalists posing as students inside the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana, Legon.
The bulk of the excerpt released spent time in the University of Lagos and one of its lecturers Professor Boniface Igbeneghu’s alleged attempts to proposition a student seeking admission into the school.