The Ghana Institute of Journalism (GIJ) has been shut down temporarily following students agitation over a policy demanding full payment of school fees.

The new policy that requires that students pay their fees in full and also register online as prerequisites to their sitting for exams conducted by the school, has led to a temporary closure of the state-owned institute.

The students went into a frenzy on campus on Sunday, 2 December 2018 after some of them were turned away from sitting for their exams over their failure to register online for the papers as well as their inability to pay their fees in full.

The cancelled papers were to have taken place today  at 1:00pm and 4:00pm respectively.

The peaceful protest, which nearly turned chaotic, was against management for not allowing some students to take the exams over non-payment of fees in full.

The students, who were clad in red and black apparel, stormed the school’s campus and called for the immediate removal of the newly inducted rector of the institute, Professor Kwabena Kwamsah-Aidoo.

But the General Secretary of the GIJ Students Representative Council (SRC), Naa Adoley Moffat, has called for calm, and assured students of the SRC’s commitment to ensure that cool heads prevail.

“The exams that have been cancelled have been rescheduled. I am pleading with you to go home and relax. We as SRC will do all we can to enable you write the exams.”

Police officers had to be deployed on campus to restore and maintain calm.

The rumpus has compelled the school authorities to suspend the writing of the remaining papers.

Some of the students complained that they could not complete the e-registration process due to its complexity.

They insisted the lecturers gave them the go-ahead to sit for the exams after going through the manual registration process.

The affected students are blaming the new rector for ordering that they are locked out of the exam hall.

A day prior, several students, including those who have paid about 80 per cent of their fees, had been prevented from sitting for the paper.