Dr Hafiz Bin-Salih, the Upper West Regional Minister has said it is his priority to ensure that the Wa Polytechnic is seen a facelift and converted into a technical university before he leaves office.
“Like I indicated the other time, nothing will gladden my heart more than to supervise the conversion of the Wa Polytechnic into a technical university. I will want it happen in the nearest future”, he said.
Dr Bin-Salih stated this when a team from the Wa Polytechnic, led by Mr Mohammed Iddrisu, the Acting Rector for the school, paid a courtesy call on him at his Office last Thursday.
The courtesy call was to enable the leadership of the institution to interact with the Regional Minister and to present the challenges of the school to the government for redress for the school to function properly.
He said all facilities there were needed to enable the school merit the conversion would provided and urged the leadership of the institution to submit a list of all stalled projects for the necessary action to be taken.
“With regards to the stalled projects, what I will ask you to write formally to me so that I will forward it to the minister of education to work on. He, however, regretted that “for some of the projects that are stalled in the school, the source of funding cannot be identified, that is the problem”
“But it is our responsibility and we are ready to correct the problems that were caused by others” he said, and asked that a list of new facilities the school needed should also be submitted to him for onward submission to the appropriate ministry for action.
Dr Bin-Salih also assured the team that the lighing system in the school will be improved.
On his part, Mr Mohammed Iddrisu, the Acting Rector for the Wa Polytechnic, appealed to the regional Minister to use his office to facilitate the conversion of the polytechnic into a technical university.
He also appealed to the minister to take the necessary steps to revisit stalled projects in the school and to provide the school with a hostel facility, saying “it is the only tertiary institution of that kind in Ghana without a hostel facility”.
Mr Iddrisu also noted that the school lacked staff, both teaching and non teaching, but that a request for clearance to employ about 160 staff had not been approved.