The Bolgatanga Technical University in the Upper East region has admitted a total of 1,371 students for the 2023/2024 academic year to study various programs.
Speaking at the matriculation ceremony, the Vice-Chancellor of the University, Professor Samuel Erasmus Alnaa, said the need for office spaces and lecture halls for the university has been pending since 2017, yet the government is yet to respond positively to their calls.
Prof. Alnaa therefore called on lecturers to continue managing the available facilities while management continues to push for the government to help the university with the needed infrastructure.
“The university is currently constrained in terms of limited lecture rooms and office spaces. This has a telling effect on effective delivery of lectures as students constantly compete for space. In view of this, I urge my colleagues to respect the timetable and desist from rescheduling their lectures to the morning, thereby creating needless traffic for lecture space,” he stated.
“While management is doing everything possible within their capacity to improvise for students to have lectures comfortably, we also urge government to quickly move in to construct lecture halls for the university. This request has been on the drawing board since 2017 and still this very important project is yet to see the light of day. It is very unfortunate that this project is still not given any financial allocation to get it constructed,” Prof Alnaa lamented.
The Vice-Chancellor urged the freshmen to be disciplined during their stay at the university.
Prof. Alnaa also expressed worry over inadequate lecturers at the university following the introduction of new programs. The Vice-Chancellor therefore called on the government to give them financial clearance to recruit more lecturers to help impart knowledge to students as the institution struggles to employ part-time lecturers to support them.
“Again, since the introduction of a number of new programmes, we have not had any commensurate increase in the number of lecturers. This has overloaded the existing teaching staff. We have to also use our meagre IGF to employ part-time lecturers. This is unsustainable since the university is still battling with low enrollment and therefore, cannot continue on this course for long. I earnestly implore government to grant us financial clearance to recruit qualified lecturers to help impart skills to our youth,” Prof. Alnaa appealed.
Source: A1Radioonline.Com|101.1MHZ|David Azure |Sumbrungu|
