The University for Development Studies (UDS) Alumni Association has launched a fund to help mobilize financial resources to assist in human resource and physical infrastructure development of the UDS.

The University for Development Studies Alumni Fund (UNIDEVF), amongst other objectives, will also mobilize and assist both faculty and brilliant but needy students with needed support for intellectual capacity development, as well as encourage investors to undertake projects on campuses of the UDS to promote growth in academic and infrastructural needs.

Mr. Moses Bukari Mabengba, Northern Regional Minister, who was the Guest of Honour, launched the fund on behalf of the UDS Alumni Association at the UDS Academic Board Chamber at its Dungu campus in Tamale on Wednesday.

Mr. Felix Abagale, National President of the UDS Alumni Association, said the growth of physical infrastructure such as lecture halls, staff, and student accommodation, laboratories, office and other infrastructural needs of the UDS did not match the rate at which its student numbers had been increasing.

Mr. Abagale said, this informed the launch of the UNIDEVF to help bridge the gap, realizing that government alone could not provide all it took for growing a university.

He however reminded government to redeem its 2008 manifesto pledge to “make a special allocation from the Ghana Education Trust Fund for the accelerated development of the UDS”.

He said, “the allocation of such special fund to the UDS is very dear to the heart of the UDS because of the nature of its academic calendar – the trimester system which requires a little more financial resources than other systems”.

Professor Haruna Yakubu, Vice Chancellor of UDS, said UDS, which started with one faculty, now had nine faculties and two schools currently and still expanding; adding that “there is no doubt that a growing university of this nature requires capital investment to facilitate the development of modern state-of-the-art infrastructure to deliver academic excellence”.

Professor Yakubu said “the support from corporate Ghana and civil society is even more crucial in the light of the fact that the University is a multi-campus institution and requires more resources to grow”.

UDS has four campuses spread across the three northern regions, which include Tamale and Nyankpala in Northern, Navrongo in Upper East and Wa in Upper West Regions.

Mr Mabengba assured that government remained committed to honouring its pledge to make a special allocation for the accelerated development of the UDS.

He said an ongoing construction of a hostel facility at the UDS Tamale campus being funded by the President’s Special fund, would be replicated at the Navrongo and Wa campuses of the UDS to solve accommodation challenges of students.

He announced that the Northern Regional Coordinating Council had planned to construct a special project such as a hostel or lecture hall for the Tamale campus of the UDS.

He also assured that government would continue to support the UDS.**