GIJ IS NEITHER A PUB NOR A HUB

GIJ'S BAN ON MINI-SKIRTS, MY BITE OF THE CHERRY.

I have observed with considerable interest the mixed feelings that has greeted the decision of the management of the nation's premier communication University, the Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ)  to place a complete ban on the wearing of shorts or mini-skirts by its students.

This intention was first disclosed by the indefatigable rector of the Institute at its last matriculation which was held on October 3, 2016. Following this announcement, I told myself that this rector wouldn't be spared by the so-called feminists and human rights advocates in our society. Truly, they haven't disappointed.

I have listened to interviews and read a number of pieces authored by these critics, where they sought to take our learned professor to the cleaners for an otherwise innocuous decision meant to restore our moral fibre and bring dignity to the 21st century female student of the nation's premier University of Communications.

They also sought to create an erroneous impression that the GIJ management had an anti-feminist agenda for contemplating this move in the first place. 

Well, some of us consider this criticism as unwarranted and one that can be likened to the change process which were thought by Mr. Frimpong Manso Esq. in his History of Africa and Anthropology classes.

I had been observing passively until a recent article by a writer who for reasons best known to him/her and of course the never aging Oldman in Heaven, and wrote under the psyeudonym 'Nyamewaa' shook my spine and woke my pen from sleep.

I wholly associate myself with the management's decision and will begrudge anybody who chastises them. Indeed, as a Brand Ambassador of GIJ, I am equally concerned about the increasing rate at which our female colleagues, who are supposed to be role models in society, tend to expose their nudity to the public under the pretext of civilisation.

You go exposing your vital organs and in the process, bring down your dignity, and lower the enviable reputation of the school. Creating unnecessary attention to yourself and you call that civilisation? Civilisation indeed! Such moral incongruity is absolutely unacceptable and must not be countenanced at all.

For Nyamewaa, as my brother Mannesseh Azure noted, she had a nice headline but poorly structured content. I have decided not to delve much into the content of the article because I can, by no means relate the Content of the article to the Headline "GIJ students need more grammar lessons than clothes ban".

The content is only a ton of insults attacking management, the Women's Commissioner and the entire GIJ family. She had the effrontery to call this particular decision of  management as "foolish" thinking that it is the best of journalistic standards and practice.

And she forgot to take into cognizance, the fact that GIJ is a professional institution that was established under the clairvoyance of Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah and therefore her  students must exhibit professionalism in all their endeavours, including their dress code.

We cannot overstate that professionalism is not necessarily showcased in paper work alone but mostly in code of conduct which encapsulates a sense of responsibility, character and decency
The last time I checked, a person is called by the way he/she dress. And I don't think one will be referred to as a professional  if the person dresses like someone going to the club or a night-street worker.

I believe in the power of conscience, so I am hopeful that Nyamewaa will do the honourable thing and apologise to GIJ for her outburst.

I wish to conclude by reiterating in unequivocal terms that, GIJ is neither a pub nor a hub for night workers, but a serious professional institution that is concerned with the enterprise of training, moulding and producing scores of well shaped and cultured Journalists and Public Relations Officers for Socio-Ecomomic and Political development of our country.

I am sure Nyamewaa will be marking my grammar by now.

The writer of this piece is the External Affairs Commissioner of GIJ-SRC and a Concerned Professional Student in the enterprise of Students Activism.

Tetteh Djem Bismark (Man In White)
bismarktetteh27@gmail.com