NAVRONGO UDS STUDENTS EMBARK ON DEMONSTRATION (Daily Graphic, Friday, November , 2008 PAGE 11)

STUDENTS of the Navrongo Campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) in the Kassena-Nankana District of the Upper East Region have embarked on a peaceful demonstration on the school’s premises over maladministration by management of the university.
Led by the executive of the Students Representative Council (SRC), the students who wore red clothes to signify their anger barricaded all entrances to the lecturers’ rooms. They also blocked the gates leading to the main campuses and the school library, thereby disrupting academic activities.
The reasons for their action included poor sanitation on the campus, overgrown weeds, inadequate furniture for studies, poor lighting systems in the various lecture halls and around the campus, as well as the frequent interruption of the Information Technology (IT) service to students.
Other reasons given included failure by management to register students for Health Insurance, exorbitant non-residential charges and the dusty road network.
The SRC President, Mr Gabriel McNair Nyamekye, said it was unfair and unacceptable for management to continue to charge students for services which they were not providing.
“If you go to our halls of residence, the situation is very appalling. The sanitation situation is very poor. We paid money to be provided IT services by a company called Socket Works, but to date we have not had any service.
“We have had enough of them and we do not think we still need their services”, the SRC President said.
“We paid GH ¢40.00 as premium for the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS), but to date most students have not been enrolled and are denied NHIS services when they visited the hospitals. If they cannot insure us they should give us our money,” he said.
He bemoaned the poor state of the residential facilities on campus and said the washroom facilities in most halls of residences were nothing to write home about. Water hardly flows through the taps and the closets are in a bad condition.
The President called on the management to correct the situation and also provide students with new mattresses to replace the worn-out ones.
In a petition presented to management, the students mentioned the poor lighting system on campus, stressing that at night the entire university community was so dark that students and lecturers alike were exposed to danger.
A copy of the petition was presented to the District Assembly and the Navrongo Traditional Council.
Responding to the demands of the students, the Dean of the Faculty of Applied Arts, Dr Kenneth B. Pelig-Ba, expressed regret at the action of the students as management was in constant touch with their leadership.
On the issue of IT service, he said the service provider informed management that due to ongoing upgrading works, the server had developed a fault and that efforts were underway to restore service.
On the inadequate furniture, Dr Pelig-Ba blamed the students for constantly removing the furniture from the lecture rooms to their hostels and other parts of the campus under the guise of studying , adding that he sometimes had to carry chairs himself to the lecture halls.
He, however, admitted that the campus was very weedy and blamed it on poor supervision and gave the assurance that the situation would be addressed.
On the NHIS, he said 3rd and 4th year students had been registered and the rest of them were yet to be registered.
He said management would take up the issue to ensure that the rest of the students were enrolled in the scheme.
The Dean promised that the management of the university would meet soon to find solutions to the concerns raised by the students to facilitate studies on campus.