Professor Kwaku Asare, a United States-based Ghanaian professor, has said he disagrees with Mr Senyo Hosi, the Chief Executive Officer of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distribution who recently said Ghana’s premier university is a “school of mediocrity” which is “living on past glories” and does not have “thinkers”.

Speaking truth to power at a stakeholders’ forum to mark the 70th anniversary of the school, Mr Hosi directly told the management of the university, as well as its lecturers and students in the face, that his alma mater must sit up and begin churning out “viable” graduates with “skills” to live.

“I have three degrees; all from the University of Ghana. I won’t hire anybody [from UG], it’s simple. And it’s a matter of substance: what do you churn out? You are churning out people with degrees, not people with an education, not people with skills on how to live; that is the problem.

“And respectfully, the old men running this school, they are too many, get them out. I beg you; you guys are not doing anything that is relevant for the future and you won’t get people wanting to employ the people out of this place.

“Your MBA students, plenty of them I won’t hire, your classmates, I won’t hire. I was also in that school. How many TA [Teaching Assistants] haven’t written people’s thesis?” Mr Hosi told them bluntly.

Citing an example to buttress his verdict on the school, Mr Hosi said: “This is the 70th-anniversary – I mean can you imagine – University of Ghana, 70th-anniversary, what kind of communication went on to promote this programme? Meanwhile, we are supposed to have a Marketing Department at the Business School and a whole Communication School, whatever it is. Look at the number of people here”.

“This is a school of mediocrity. Look at the panellists, their tables, no place for them to even keep their books and things and water, they have to go on the floor.

“This typifies what you’re sitting in Prof. If you want to fix it, forget about this your 70 years and your University of Ghana. I bluff a lot with my school because whatever it is, this is where I come from, but forget it, the world has moved on, you’re not going to live on your past glories anymore, people come here because it is a to-do – I must get a degree – that is the reason why people are coming here.

“You must make people cease wanting to come for a degree but wanting to come for an education and with certain skills that make them viable in the future. Your children don’t have skills that make them viable for the future, they don’t have the thinking, they are robots, even that robot they can’t even do it; I’m telling you. So, if you want to fix it, it starts with you guys as lecturers, it starts with being the thinkers, you guys are not thinking, respectfully”, he admonished.

But reacting to the comments on his Facebook page, Prof Asare said: “People who lack critical thinking will beat up anyone who likens them to robots.

“On that ground alone, I disagree with Senyo Hosi’s assessment of the quality of teaching at the University of Ghana.

“We would have sentenced him to the ‘gono pond’ in our days (40 years with hard labour and no parole possibility).”