Accra, Oct. 4 GNA - Degree Students of the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) on Tuesday condemned the unruly behaviour of the IPS professional students, which led to the closing down of the School last Saturday.

They said the professional students took the law into their hands by driving out students from classrooms and the library and threatening Lectures, who dared to teach.

The degree students, however, appealed to the Management of the Institute to look at the current academic structures and re-open the School to enable academic work to progress.

Mr Fred Awaah, President of Bachelor of Business Administration Students Association, was speaking at press conference in Accra to clarify certain statements making the rounds in the media. He pledged the support of degree students to the Management if any disciplinary action were taken against students, who contravened rules and procedures of the Institute.

Mr Awaah noted that a students' leadership crisis, with a section of the professional students calling for the removal from office of the SRC President, Mr Francis Kyei, a professional student now a degree student, was blown out of proportion leading to the closure of the School. He said the degree students also became apprehensive about the intemperate utterances by some professional students whose actions did not only disturb the peace and tranquillity for academic work but sought to draw the Management into what was purely a student leadership crisis. Mr Awaah further noted that the leadership of the degree students sought audience with the Management along with the leadership of the professional students and agreed on an interim student executive council to replace the Executive Council and the General Assembly of the SRC, which was in total disarray.

He said it was, therefore, surprising for professional students to reject the interim leadership to which their representative was a party.

He further noted that it was appalling for the professional students, numbering about 200, to have gathered in front of the Rector's Office last Friday singing war songs and threatening to break down the door of his office, necessitating the calling in of the Police to quell the disturbances.

Mr Dominic Naab, President of the Chartered Accountant Students Society (CASS), when contacted denied that the professional students held the Rector of the School hostage last Friday.

He said the professional students were not fighting the degree students but all that they wanted was for the truth of the issue to be brought out for the public to judge.

He said since the whole crisis started the professional students were cooperating with their degree counterparts and wondered the sudden change in the approach of the degree students.

Mr Samuel B. Ofei, Head of Publication of the IPS, who spoke of the official position of the school authorities, said the Academic Board and the Council had agreed that the Institute be closed down until a suit filed at an Accra High was decide on Friday October 6, 2006. He said the school authorizes did not want to be held for contempt of court and that they would have to wait for the outcome before they could decide on the re-opening of the Institute.