The University for Development Studies (UDS), Alumni Association, has called on the ruling National Democratic Congress (NDC) to fulfill its 2008 manifesto promise of allocating funds through the GETFund to support the infrastructural needs of the school.
“We cannot but remind Government about what has been stated in the 2008 manifesto of the NDC, about our dear University on making a special allocation from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the accelerated development of the UDS”, they stressed.
Mr Felix Kofi Abagale, National President of the Alumni was addressing the second national delegate’s congress of the association in Tamale, on Saturday, which brought together past students of the university and some staff to deliberate on the progress of the university.
He said the NDC at the time also expressed its commitment in establishing a School of Allied Health Sciences with a campus at Kintampo, in the Brong Ahafo Region, adding that, “We the Alumni are still waiting to hear favourably from the Government on all these good plans”.
Mr Abagale however commended the President, Prof. John Evans Atta Mills for being the first sitting president to have visited the school
and appealed to him to make time to attend the 12th congregation of the university.
He announced that the National Secretariat of the UDS Alumni Association was making frantic efforts to secure financial support to establish a chair in the university in the study of indigenous and
neglected fruit tree species in Northern Ghana.
He said the Alumni’s efforts had resulted in the drafting of syllabi for the establishment of a Centre for Peace studies and appealed to all stakeholders to ensure a speedy and successful
take-off of the centre.
The Vice Chancellor of UDS, Professor Haruna Yakubu said Alumni Associations were vital stakeholders in every university and had the
potential in executing the mandate of the institution and that in recent past there had been attempts by universities in Ghana to revamp
the Alumni to make them more effective.
He urged the Alumni of UDS to develop a close link with the university, to enable it to contribute in fund raising activities to augment government’s dwindling resources to the school.
He called on the Alumni to act as special ambassadors in propagating the exciting opportunities of the university.
Prof. Yakubu urged the Alumni to make presentations to prospective students in Ghana and abroad, in order to market the university and its programmes and donate financially and in kind for the development of the institution.
Dr. A. B. T. Zakariah, Acting Registrar of UDS said the university had its first batch in September 30, 1993 without a full complement of lecturers and facilities and that all the 40 students were admitted to read Bsc Agriculture Technology.
He said the school had since grown from strength to strength, saying that, the increasing number of intake was without a correlative
infrastructural improvement, adding that, the student’s population currently stands at 19,210.
Dr Zakariah said the university still has to face the acute problems of lecture room and student’s accommodation, even though a lot of such facilities had been provided.