Some Youth Groups in the Upper West Region have appealed to President John Dramani Mahama and the Ministry of Education to consider making the Wa and Navrongo campuses of the University for Development Studies (UDS) autonomous.

The Youth Coalition said that would complete a full cycle of functional location of public universities in all the 10 regions of Ghana, as pertains in the President’s vision.

“In fact, the conversion of these campuses to autonomous universities is long overdue. We therefore fully associate ourselves with this vision of the President since the benefits of this conversion are enormous,” says the youth.

Addressing a press conference in Wa, Prosper Puo-ire, Convener of the Coalition of Youth Groups, said the youth call was a backup one to support a similar demand from traditional rulers in the Region asking government to make the Wa Campus of the UDS a fully-fledged university.

He noted that granting the Wa and Navrongo campuses autonomy and their own right to grow as fully fledged universities, would not only facilitate rapid spatial development in the Regions, but also would equally be a leverage to eliminating poverty and illiteracy.

Apart from it also creating direct and indirect job openings for people within the two Regions, the move would be a significant stimulus in propelling the engine of national integration as many more faculties would be created and many new courses designed to meet the educational needs of young people across Ghana.

Prosper Puo-ire added that the move would be a significant step at augmenting the development need of the mother university.

He explained that making the satellite campuses autonomous universities would make it easy to run the institutions efficiently and effectively as each campus would be able to take its own decisions with regards to planning, administration and others within the shortest possible time without having to travel all the way to Tamale.

“This will make administration of the universities less cumbersome as it will not involve regular travelling to and from Tamale to have certain key decisions taken,” Mr. Puo-ire said.

Students with issues with their academic records would also avoid the extra cost involved in travelling to Tamale to have those issues rectified, he added.

Prosper Puo-ire said the coalition was surprised after listening to a few dissenting voices from several quarters seeking to disrupt the implementation of such a noble policy through numerous press documents.

“The dissent of a few voices cannot be an impetus for which we as a people should be denied our fair share of development,” he noted.

– See more at: http://regional.citifmonline.com/2016/04/07/expedite-action-on-conversion-of-uds-youth-appeal/#sthash.HGFH1sSC.dpuf