Sex for grades: I respect UG’s decision to interdict me – Prof Gyampo

• Posted on October 9, 2019October 9, 2019
• by Nana Kwesi Coomson
• Comment

One of the two lecturers of the University of Ghana interdicted Tuesday over allegations of sexual harassment says he welcomes the decision.

Prof Ransford Gyampo said he respects the order by the management of the University asking him to step aside for investigations into the allegations.

“I think it is a fair thing to be asked to do…I will submit myself to the process. I know that at the end of the day they [investigators] will do a good job,” he told Evans Mensah on Joy FM’s Top Story.

Prof. Ransford Gyampo of the Political Science Department and Dr Paul Kwame Butakor a lecturer at the Department of Teacher Education of the School of Education and Leadership were filmed making sexual advances to ‘students’ who were actually undercover investigators.

Less than 48 hours of the broadcast titled ‘Sex for grades’, the University of Ghana has announced their interdiction.

The two are also expected to face the University’s anti-sexual harassment committee probing the scandal.

”…the University has taken a decision to interdict Prof. Ransford Gyampo and Dr Paul Kwame Butakor, the two lecturers featured in the documentary to allow for further investigations into the matter.

“In line with University regulations, the two will be invited by the Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee in the next few days to assist with further investigations into the BBC documentary,” the University said in a statement issued on Tuesday.

Sex for grades

Academic institutions in West Africa have increasingly been facing allegations of sexual harassment by lecturers. This type of abuse is said to be endemic, but it’s almost never proven.

After gathering dozens of testimonies, BBC Africa Eye sent undercover journalists posing as students inside the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana.

Female reporters were sexually harassed, propositioned and put under pressure by senior lecturers at the institutions – all the while wearing secret cameras.

-Joy