By Nicholas Osei-Wusu
The University for Development Studies (UDS), has dispatched a total of 6,425 first year students to assist 642 rural communities in the Ashanti region to identify their priority socio-economic development challenges.
It is under the university’s ‘Third Trimester Field Practical Programme’, TTFPP.
The University for Development Studies (UDS), based in the Northern region, is the only tertiary institution in Ghana practicing a Trimester academic schedule as opposed to the traditional semester.
This system makes it compulsory for all first, second and third-year students at all the campuses to spend at least six weeks of their course period in a rural community for various reasons under the Third Trimester Field Practical Programme, TTFPP, to help identify the priority socio-economic needs of their host communities and build a database of those concerns with proposed sustainable solutions and the reports submitted to the District Assemblies to guide their development planning.
Through this TTFPP initiative, which equates to six Credit Hours, the participating students also learn different cultures, norms, values, and social lives outside of their home towns as part of the national social integration and cohesion plans.
Under the TTFPP, UDS has since its establishment, about 32 years ago, been sending the students to rural communities in northern Ghana, where the main and satellite campuses are located.
However, for the second year running, management of the UDS has extended the practical student work to the Ashanti region.
Out of the more than 11 thousand students undertaking the programme, 6,425 have been dispatched to a total of 645 rural communities in the Ashanti region in municipalities and districts such as Mampong, Adansi North, Adansi Asokwa, Bekwai, Bosomtwe, and Bosome Freho.
The official orientation and dispatch ceremony for the students at Adansi Fomena was witnessed by some management members of the University.
At the orientation and dispatch ceremony at Fomena in the Adansi North district, the Pro Vice Chancellor of UDS, Professor Elliot Alhassan, called on the government and key stakeholders to urgently consider re-designing Ghana’s educational system from the traditional classroom-based in an effort to address the myriad of development challenges.
“Ghana’s current developmental challenges require a paradigm shift from classroom-based training to hands-on-the-job training, and the outreach programmes of the UDS provide the platform for reducing hunger and poverty and eradicating diseases by sustainably using our own local resources to adequately provide good education, food and healthcare for every Ghanaian so that no one is left behind.”
“Ghana’s educational training should not mirror that of other nations who are exploring space. We have to model our education around helping students to develop a mindset and acquire the needed skills to address our current domestic challenges,” Prof. Alhassan advocated.
The Pro Vice Chancellor announced that, this academic year, a Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Awards’ has been set up to reward any group that will go the extra mile to seek funding for their community projects and the Best Group Member.
Prof. Alhassan advocated that with Ghana’s unique socio-economic development challenges, the authorities need to shift the paradigm from mirroring the western type of education to a model that emphasises equipping students to identify and design development challenges for local communities.
The Dean of Students of UDS, Dr. Alhassan Musah, reminded the students that their new locations are extensions of their campuses, for which all university rules and regulations will apply.
They must therefore shun negative and illegal tendencies, including ‘galamsey.
He warned, “this programme extends the classroom to the community. By implication, all the rules we apply in the University will apply in the community. And so, if you assault somebody in the community, the University will assault you.”
Taking them through the psychology of living and working in a new community, the Dean of the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Dr. Vida Yanong, advised them to respect the cultures and people of their host communities.
She urged the students to adapt quickly and well to their host communities by first learning the indigenous language but avoiding secluded areas.
