UDS Wa Campus admits about 3,500

Wa, Sept 20, GNA - Professor Kaku Sagary Nokoe, Acting Vice-Chancellor of the University of Development Studies (UDS), has appealed to estate developers to build affordable houses around campuses of the university to help reduce the accommodation challenges facing the students.

He said Ghana Hostel Limited, subsidiary of SSNIT in particular, should make use of land allocated to both the Tamale and Navrongo campuses and put the Wa campus on its list. Prof Nokoe said this at the 16th matriculation of the faculty of Integrated Development Studies at the Wa campus on Saturday. About 3,500 students were formally admitted to undertake post graduate, degree diploma and certificate programmes in integrated development studies, planning and land management and community development studies. Prof Nokoe said the university was prepared to cooperate on mutually agreed terms with business minded individuals within the environs of the campuses who would invest in hostels or provide other services to the university community. On admissions, he said the university admitted 80 per cent of qualified applicants and demonstrated its commitment to ensure education for all by admitting all qualified applicants from deprived schools and all qualified female from all parts of the country. For the first time in the history of the Wa Campus, the matriculation was held at its permanent site.

The Acting Vice-Chancellor said the priority of the Wa Campus currently was a library, staff accommodation and basic school while the construction of a clinic and another at Navrongo had began with internally generated funds. Prof Nokoe thanked the government and the GETFUND for making it possible for some of the students to be accommodated at the permanent campus.

Being an election year, he urged students to engage in activities that would promote peace on campus. Mr George Hikah Benson, Upper West Regional Minister, appealed to landlords in the Wa Municipality not to exploit the students by charging exorbitant rents. He also urged taxi drivers, market women and those who are in the position to meet the needs of the students to make things easy for them so that they could feel at home. The Regional Minister asked the students to also reciprocate the good gesture of leading exemplary and discipline lives that would make them settle down to studies to become future leaders of the country. Miss Aisha Gomta, a representative of the new students, appealed to the government to solve their transportation difficulties.