Govt will support UDS -Alhaji Idris

Wa, Sept. 23, GNA - Alhaji Mustapha Ali Idris, Chairman of the GETFund Board, on Friday bemoaned the deplorable conditions at the Wa Campus of the University of Development Studies (UDS) and gave the assurance that Government would give attention to the provision of facilities to make teaching and learning effective.

He said it was sad that most of the students who lived in rented premises due to lack of hostel facilities, spent between 30,000 cedis and 40,000 cedis daily to attend lectures.

Alhaji Idris gave the assurance when addressing the students After inspecting on-going projects at the University's campus at Bamahu, near Wa.

Projects inspected were, the 13 billion cedis 500 Capacity Auditorium, two hostels for women at a cost of 7.9 billion cedis all being financed from the GETFund and a multi-purpose Social Science laboratory being funded from a Spanish grant.

Out of the 5,441 students in the University, the Wa campus has 2,640 students but no lecture hall or hostel.

Level 300 and 400 students currently use an uncompleted office complex of the Upper West Regional House of Chiefs as their lecture theatre while the Level 100 and 200 students use the Assembly hall of the Wa School For the Deaf for lectures.

Alhaji Idris said as pioneers of the University they were bound to face problems and challenges but that should not discourage them from taking their studies seriously because their course content was unique and had community participation in problem solving as its basic goal. Mr Ambrose Dery, Upper West Regional Minister, commended the students for coping with the challenges they were facing but was optimistic that with time, the challenges would change for the better. Alhaji Idris also inspected work on on-going projects at the Wa Polytechnic.

Professor Sampson Agodzo, the Principal appealed to the Government for more residential accommodation for the staff and hostels for women.