Student frauds must be made to face the law - Minister

Sunyani (B/A), Feb. 22, - Mr. Ignatius Baffour-Awuah, Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister on Friday urged educational institutions not to only sack students who falsify documents to gain admission but also hand them over to the police to face the full rigours of the law. This, he noted, would not only serve as deterrent to like-minded others but would further enable students to concentrate on their books to achieve high academic laurels.

Mr. Baffour-Awuah gave the advice at a matriculation ceremony for 60 students of Sunyani Nurses Training College in Sunyani. "You will never succeed in life if you use shortcuts", he said and admonished the students to study hard to enable them to make meaningful contributions to the development of their respective communities and the

country as a whole. Mr. Baffour-Awuah observed that the region had a community nursing training school at Tanoso, near Sunyani with a student population of 305, the nursing training college in Sunyani with 236 students and a newly established nursing assistant's training school also in Sunyani with a student population of 52. "With these efforts, we anticipate that by 2010, the region would require a number of health personnel of all categories and also become an exporter of health personnel to other regions in the country", he added.

The Regional Minister noted with concern that whilst the government was doing its best to improve health care delivery and make it accessible to all Ghanaians, health workers had time and again demanded for improved conditions of service to do health sanitation and hygiene education, environmental protection campaigns and to lead the campaign against HIV/AIDS".

Mr. Baffour-Awuah emphasized that poor nutritional practices and unhealthy lifestyles coupled with malaria formed the "deadly trio" that needed collaborative efforts to confront and implored Ghanaians to adhere to simple but good eating habits to improve their health status. Mr. Felix Nyante, Deputy Registrar, supervision and regional coordination of Nurses and Midwives Council of Ghana, said the recent increase in the number of applications by all the nursing and midwifery training schools in the country gave an indication of a growing interest of the youth in the professions.

He disclosed that available statistics from the Human Resource for Health Development of the Ministry of Health indicated that out of the total of 78,000 applications received in 2007, 6000 gained admission to health training institutions throughout the country. Mr. Nyante urged the students to devote their entire life to studies, both practical and theory and appealed to the management of the college to also play its role in ensuring effective teaching and learning.

Mr. Francis Omono Asamoah, Principal, said the college, which was established in 2004 with 40 students could boast of a student population of 235.

He said the college would present its first batch of 39 students for the licensure examination in March-April this year. Mr. Nyante mentioned inadequate demonstration room and equipment, inadequate classrooms and library books, as well as insufficient clinical sites as the major problems facing the college. He said last year, 1,520 candidates applied for admission, with 400 of them qualified, but only 60 were offered admission due to inadequate classrooms and appealed for amendment of the GETFUND law to enable nurses training colleges to access the fund.