The annual challenges first-year students of the University of Ghana face in securing accommodation on the university’s campus continuously persist.
This year, scores of newly admitted students of the university are expressing frustration about their inability to get accommodation on the university’s campus when the portal for securing accommodation was opened yesterday.
The university authorities are blaming the situation on inadequate accommodation to serve the admitted 16,000 freshmen for 2022/2023 as the available rooms can accommodate only 6,000 students.
In an interview with the Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university in charge of Academic and Student Affairs, Professor Gordon A Awandare told the Daily Graphic that, the problem had persisted over the years due to the inadequate accommodation space for admitted students.
“We were only able to upload about 1,500 rooms, but 16,000 students are trying to get accommodation so that’s why within five minutes it’s full. There is no trick there, it is just the pressure,” he explained.
He said that the university was doing everything possible to remedy the situation, but unfortunately, it was faced with challenges such as inadequate financial resources.
“It is a problem that bothers us and we are working very hard to resolve it,” he said.
The students who attempted to register when the portal was opened at 9a.m, said they were unable to access the portal meant to allow them to get entry into the various halls of residence of the university.
While some of the students complained about not being able to get access to the portal, others said they were granted access but were locked out from the page that allowed one to select a hall and subsequently a room.
For those who were fortunate to be able to access the page for the selection of the halls, they said they could not go beyond that point as the system froze and became unresponsive to their selections.
Although yesterday was the opening day for students to go through their course registration at their various departments, most of them who had shown up on campus were more concerned about their accommodation.
When the Daily Graphic visited the university campus, yesterday, some of the students and their parents had trooped there to try and resolve their predicaments.
Most of the students and parents the Daily Graphic spoke with looked very anxious, helpless and angry, as they had no idea what was going to happen next.
It was unclear when the portal shut, but as of 11 a.m. when the Daily Graphic team visited the university campus, it observed that some of the students and their parents were still trying to see if they could access the portal.
Apart from the traditional halls, almost all the other halls had many students trooping there, with the hope of securing a place.
On plans to resolve the problem, Prof. Awandare said the university had embarked on many hostel projects and had also given land leases to investors to build private hostels.
“There’s one the university itself is completing which we thought would be ready by now, but it is not, hopefully, next academic year.
“Also, our GUSS, which is our Retirement Fund, is about to build a hostel. Managers are still going through the procurement process to get a contractor to start working on it and that will also augment the accommodation on campus,” he said.
Additionally, the Pro-Vice-Chancellor said the university had annexed a private hostel near the University of Professional Studies, Accra (UPSA) which will bring on board 650 beds.
Source: Daily Graphic
