Regional News of Thursday, 19 October 2006

Source: GNA

Committee happy with infrastructure development at Nyankpala campus

Nyankpala (N/R), Oct. 19, GNA - The Parliamentary Select Committee on Education has expressed satisfaction with the infrastructure development on the Nyankpala campus of the University for Development Studies (UDS) but said there was room for improvement. Mr. Stephen Kwaku Balado Manu, chairman of the committee expressed this sentiment on behalf of the members when he led an 11-member delegation on a familiarisation tour of the Nyankpala campus of the University on Thursday.

"Infrastructure facilities on UDS Nyankpala campus when finished would be the best in all the country's universities considering how well they have planned the university". He said.

Projects the committee visited included a modern library complex, a modern lecture hall, the female hostel project, the new Central Administration block, and the CAN 2008 hostel project, which were all moving fast.

Mr. Manu, who is also the Member of Parliament (MP) for Ahafo Ano North, said all the universities were facing infrastructure problems but indicated that the UDS had a peculiar problem due to the circumstances under which it was set up and expressed the hope that government would help it to overcome those problems.

"As Parliamentarians and Select Committee Members on Education, we would file a report on the situation on the ground and the necessary recommendation to ensure that what is due any institution would be given to it", he emphasised.

Mr. Balado Manu, however, decried poor infrastructure at Wa campus of the university describing the situation as heart-touching and urged students and lecturers not to be discouraged about the situation to affect their performance.

Mr. Alexander N. Tettey-Enyo, Ranking Member of Education advised university authorities to ensure equitable distribution of infrastructure development on all the campuses so as to improve and enhance teaching and learning.

Professor John Kaburise, Vice Chancellor of UDS expressed gratitude to the GETFund for funding a lot of projects and appealed for adequate funding on educational projects to ensure their speedy completion. He said due to the nature of the university there was the need to adopt the video-conference system to connect the three campuses of UDS so that students could easily tap the experience of visiting lecturers. Prof. Kaburise also appealed for an increase in the GETFund allocation to fund computer laboratories to ensure that the university trained students on Information Communication Technology (ICT). 19 Oct. 06