By Millicent Mannah
Dr. Philip John Kanu, Vice-Chancellor and Principal (VCP) of the Milton Margai Technical University (MMTU), on Saturday 8th October 2022, in a very confident and determined mood, intimated newsmen at his Goderich campus office in Freetown that six lecturers, including Deans of Campuses and Heads of Departments have been dismissed for various professional misconduct including sexually harassing female students, promoting and changing the grades of students, inciting colleagues not to teach while four others have been sacked for abandoning the classroom for between six and nine months asserting that the primary responsibility of his administration is to protect students, especially female students who are vulnerable.
“Some of the lecturers even impregnated the students, used their offices as bedrooms to sleep with them with some of the girls competing for the lecturers in spite of the fact that some of the wives of the lecturers are themselves students. The lecturers also extorted monies from the students and failed those who refused to cooperate regardless of the fact that we had organized series of professional trainings for lecturers and warned them against professional misconduct,” he disclosed.
He continued that the entire student body has commended the administration for the latest development assuring all that the students are in safe hands at MMTU as the administration is determined not to disappoint the President and promised that the affected lecturers would be named and shamed to serve as a precedent otherwise the practice would destroy the country stressing that MMTU has a zero tolerance on sexual harassment.
He further clarified that the affected lecturers confessed doing the act, that the female students were bold enough to divulge information to the Special Committee setup to investigate the matter and that the lecturers had audios and videos of their sex ordeals with the students assuring all that the affected students would be protected until they complete their courses at MMTU.
The Vice Chancellor and Principal also disclosed that due to the unprecedented increase in the number of passes in this year’s West Africa Senior Secondary School Examination which he attributed to the free quality education, over 1,000 pupils with 77% clear passes nationwide are qualified to enter tertiary institutions and assured that the MMTU is prepared and capacitated to admit the increasing number of students into its various faculties and departments but warned that the MMTU may not admit all students and encouraged would-be applicants to apply for Certificate and Diploma courses before proceeding to Degree courses guaranteeing that when they graduate they would be fit for purpose.
Dr. Philip John Kanu reiterated that the college would not admit students above its capacity as well as admit those without the requirements affirming that English Language and Mathematics cannot be trivialized as the President is working hard for the country to compete with the world assuring that MMTU has the laboratories, workshops, libraries, manpower, generators and other facilities to teach quality education and intimated that quality goes with professionalism.
