Bolgatanga, May 11, GNA - The University for Development Studies (UDS) has held a two-day seminar on the theme, "University Research and People Centred Developmental Needs in Ghana". The seminar, organized by UDS at Bolgatanga and sponsored by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada, was to make university research more relevant to the developmental needs of the people of Ghana.

Delivering a Paper on the "Challenges and Achievement of Developmental Science Faculty; The Case of the Faculty of Applied Science of UDS" the Dean of the Faculty, Dr Kenneth B Pelig-Ba, appealed to the government to pay more attention to science education institutions by sponsoring them to acquire more science equipment and well trained lecturers. He said fund from the government for science education institutions were inadequate and the schools were not achieving good results.

Dr Pelig-Ba stressed the need for the government to motivate lecturers and auxiliary staff of Science education institutions and proposed provision of adequate materials including books, journals, computers and reading materials. He said the Faculty of Applied Science of the UDS, which started its programmes in 2002, faces a lot of challenges and mentioned some of them as the lack of laboratories. He said lack of these facilities was affecting its accreditation and that as at now the Applied Physics programme and the Department of Earth Science had not yet been accredited due to lack of laboratories and science equipment.

Dr Pelig-Ba said accommodation has had a very high toll on the Faculty of Applied Science of the UDS Navrongo Campus as many lecturers found it difficult to get decent accommodation to stay together with their families. He appealed to the government, non-governmental organizations and the University Management to commit some resources for the development of the Faculty of Applied Sciences since it is the only tertiary level scientific institution in northern Ghana. "The failure of this institution will spell doom not only to the north but to Ghana as a whole", he said.

Dr Delali Dovie , the leader of the Developmental Universities of the South Project, expressed regret that there was no African country that spent up to 1 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on research and described the situation as unfortunate.