Alumni of University Hall of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), popularly known as Katanga are resisting a decision by school authorities to assign females to the all-male hall. 

They say, sharing the hall with female students will dilute the brand that Katanga Hall has built for itself for more than half a century.

"I don't think any parent would allow the daughter to go to Katanga or Unity [Hall]; I believe strongly that," the spokesperson for the alumni, Collins Kankam-Kwarteng, told Joy News.

He added, "Katanga is male-oriented or male-infested everything, the thing is a brand and the whole anthem speaks for itself...and I don't think that any female would want to go and sleep there."

University Hall students at the annual Joy FM Skuuls Reunion

KNUST authorities early this year announced plans to convert some single-sex halls in the school to accommodate its increasing number of female students.

There are two all-male halls in the school namely Unity (Continental) and University Halls as well as one all-female hall, African Hall.

New programmes introduced by the school in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) are responsible for the increase in the female population on campus.

Soon after the announcement, members of the Continental Hall Alumni Association of KNUST (Old Continentals) said the purpose for creating the all-male hall in 1968 will be defeated if the conversion is allowed to go on.

”‹Read: Continental Hall Alumni vow to resist conversion, petition gov't to halt plan

So far, nine out of 43 females in the first batch of continuing students who are to be given accommodation, have been allocated to the hall. 

But Kankam-Kwarteng said the decision will leave a lot of the male students emotionally traumatised, wondering if the authorities have plans of changing a phrase in the Hall's anthem which that says "...a united family of brothers we wrestle..."  

"I believe strongly in my heart and the hearts of the many thousands of 'Katangees' that are going through this emotional trauma that no lady...can go and sleep in Katanga.

"And we are waiting to see the first lady who would step foot in Katanaga, no lady can do that," he avered. 

"Whatever we want to say or whatever we want to do, we are keeping it to our chest," he said.