Wa, July 14, GNA - Eight years after the establishment of the Faculty of Integrated Development Studies (FIDS) of the University of Development Studies at Wa, students are still battling with residential accommodation.

While accommodation provided by the university could only cater for about 500 out of over 4,000 students, rates of private houses are also moving astronomically, making life unbearable for students. All these came out when the Ghana News Agency (GNA) interacted with students on their living conditions at the FIDS Campus. The interviews also revealed that although two new hostel blocks on

the campus were completed and would be put to use this academic year only about 500 out of 4,300 students on the campus would be accommodated. Worst still, some of the contractors who were working on the hostels have abandoned their projects without any formal excuse or permission. Dr Daniel Bagah, Dean of Students at the Faculty, who spoke to the authority was liaising with landlords in the municipality to ensure that students were accommodated. He said students who wanted accommodation on the campus would have to pay 180.00 Ghana cedis per bed for the old facilities and 230.00 Ghana cedis per student for the new ones.

Dr Bagah could however, not give the mode of selection as to how students were to be accommodated on the campus as "we are yet to meet and decide on the method." He appealed to students to apply to the university for consideration. He also appealed to private developers in the country to consider putting up hostel facilities at the various campuses of the university to enable them to accommodate a lot more students. Meanwhile, some of the students the GNA spoke to have expressed dissatisfaction at some of the private accommodations in the municipality. Marcel onus Bayuo, a Level 300 student told the GNA that while some of the houses had no potable water, most of them were also without toilets and even bathrooms thereby exposing them to all kinds of dangerous reptiles outside their compounds. He called on the university authority to expedite action on various projects to alleviate the plight of students on campus. "Most of the houses are also very far from campus which compel us to either buy motorbike or bicycles, further exerting more pressure on both students and parents," a student told GNA