Tamale (Northern Region) - President John Agyekum Kufuor has given the assurance that the Tamale Regional Hospital would definitely be converted into a Teaching Hospital.

In this regard, he said, he had directed the Ministers of Education, Health and Finance to continue to source funding for the upgrading of the health facility into a teaching hospital and urged professional medical bodies to assist the University for Development Studies (UDS) to develop its medical school.

President Kufuor said this in a speech read for him by Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, Minister of Education, at the third congregation and 10th anniversary of the UDS on Saturday.

The President said the government would also improve the physical environment of the university to enhance teaching and learning. He asked the graduates to be agents of change and act as front liners in preventing rural-urban drift.

President Kufuor commended the Upper West Regional Co-ordinating Council for the role it played in the establishment of the Wa Campus of the UDS and entreated the other regions, which have campuses of the university to emulate the Council.

He expressed the hope that in the near future, the university would be able to carry out research into chieftaincy problems in the three Northern Regions. Professor J. B. Kaburise, Vice-chancellor of UDS, appealed to the government to consider as a matter of urgency, the tarring of the road between Choggu, a suburb of Tamale, and the UDS central administration.

He announced that that the university was drawing up a strategic plan to guide and regulate its growth and development within the next five years. Dr Hakim Wemah, Chairman of the University Council appealed to the government for special allocation of funds for the training of students, who faced financial constraints.

Dr Wemah appealed to the people of Dagbon to embrace the "Akosombo Peace

Initiative" and learn to live peacefully with one another. Graduates numbering about 180 were presented with certificates.

Honorary doctorate degrees were also conferred on Professor Akilagpa Sawyerr, a former Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Legon, Dr Zachary Yamba, President of Essex Country College, New Jersey, United States and Professor Francis Ali-Osman of the University of Texas, United States.