NUGS statement on Students Day

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STATEMENT OF THE NATIONAL UNION OF GHANA STUDENTS (NUGS)

ON THE NATIONAL STUDENTS DAY CELEBRATION ON TUESDAY, 15 MAY, 2012

Students Must Go after Politicians who preach division this year

Today, students all over Ghana and beyond will mark the day with profound gladness not because of the strength in our numbers but also because students symbolize the hope and the future of our country and continent Africa.

Students in this country have suffered in the hands of those entrusted with responsibilities to watch over our educational system including our national Government. The education of our future generation has been treated with casualty by our national Policy Makers and institutions that must know better like the Ministry of Education. The Poor Performance of our pupils in the Junior High Schools as witnessed last year is a case in point.

Junior High & Senior High Schools

1. Performances of the Pupils in the Junior High and the Senior High Schools are nothing to boast of as a country that wants to wipe out poverty in the foreseeable future through education. Today we have been inundated with the news of the sacking of the 15 final year students of the Kumasi Senior High Technical School (KSTS) from the examination hall and prevented from taking their Physic Theory paper due to an alleged non-payment of their schools by the schools Assistant Headmaster.

2. School Officials under the watchdog of the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education are extorting huge amount of money from pupils who genuinely deserved to be admitted. What is more is that, these Officials see the vulnerability in the parents and exploit for their ends without being chided by their superintending authorities. They demand paints, cash, cements, plastic chairs, and brushes etc before wards are given an admission. Anything short of this is damaging.

3. As a result of the inadequate infrastructure and educational opportunities in our country, there are still more pupils who have been relegated to the background due to the lack of opportunities. If we will not be serious with the education of these ones our country will not develop as we aspire to.

Tertiary Schools

a. Tertiary education in Ghana is becoming a preserve of the rich instead of the constitutional mandate of an "education (being) a right not a privilege". The people in higher places who enjoyed free education are the very ones preaching for the tuition fees of the future generation to be increased.

b. Facilities in the existing Public Universities are fast deteriorating as a result of population pressure that is mounting on them. The commitment of our national Government is far away from ensuring qualitative education through the provision of state of the art equipment in order to insure for future generation good human resource in the country for developmental take-off.

c. Programs pursued in our tertiary schools are not in conformity to the trend of development internationally. This situation has created graduate unemployment situation exploding hugely in the face of the Prof. Mills Government. This incident has demoralized the graduates enticing them to engage in social vices with damaging repercussion to our country and its people.

d. Persons and Institutions established to protect the laws of the land are the very ones breaching the spirit and the letter of our laws. The issue of the Cape Coast Police opening tear gas on the students of Cape Coast Polytechnic as they were on a float to mark their Students Representative Council (SRC) week celebration is a case in point. The Police service did not chide their people for their unfortunate conducts but rather hailed them as the "heroes" of the day.

As we mark today as the National Students Day, the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) want to thank students for having kept faith thus far and NUGS wants to appeal to them to still hold on to their dreams. It is your dream and ours that the future of our nation will be built on.

We say Ayekoo to all students and we want to call on them to go after any Politician who will try to divide our nation more especially with this year being an election year.

To the National Politicians you have had your field day and right about today, things will, and must change. We will not let you sleep if you do not allow our people to sleep.

Thank you.

Signed:

Austin Brako-Powers

(Press & Information Secretary-NUGS)

Tel: 0242 628164

Released on Tuesday, 15 May, 2012