NUGS to embark on massive demonstration…Against government's

NUGS to embark on massive demonstration…Against government's gross insensitivity to students abroad
Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has announced that it would soon embark on a massive nationwide demonstration against the current gross insensitivity of government to Ghanaian students aboard.

According to NUGS about 200 Ghanaian students who are pursuing various programmes in Russia and other countries are facing deportation due to government’s inability to pay their bursaries.

Speaking to some journalist in Accra over the weekend on some issues concerning the Ghanaian students, the President of the NUGS Mr. Ishmael Tweneboa-Kodua stated that last year, language students from the country’s institution could not pursue their one year abroad programme in neighboring Togo and Benin as a result of lack of funds.

He added that the scholarship secretariat could foot the bills to facilitate their trips.

“We are proud nation or at least that is what our forebears fought for, and if for any reason we are unable to meet our obligations, we need not extend our collective shame beyond our boarders and be made the laughing stock of the rest of the world” he said.

He went on further to say that students at the university of Ghana and other campuses in some cases have to resort to ‘free ranging’ when attending to nature’s call because taps will not run.

Still with the issues bothering the youth, Mr. Tweneboa-Kodua pointed out against the culture of harassment of female students by lecturers at all the various tertiary institutions in the country.

He indicated that it was an aberration for their female colleagues to undergo the harrowing trauma from male lteachers with ungodly demands.

He therefore called on the school authorities to put measures in place to guarantee female student their full rights and freedoms as enshrined in the national constitution.

He stressed the concern of exam malpractice and cancellation of examination results by the West African Examination Council (WAEC) as an increasing incidence hampering education and the union.

He said this situation puts a lot of strain on students and needs to be addressed.

The President said WAEC must put their house in order to stop the leakage of question papers while authorities of schools must desist from the practice of chasing question papers to cheat the system.

Touching on the National Youth Employment Programme (NYEP), Mr. Tweneboa-Kodua, lamented that employees under the programme are once again threatening a demonstration over cumulated unpaid allowances.

The livelihoods of thousands must not be jeopardized needlessly. Before the programme was introduced in 2007, sources of funding ought to have been identified. The future of these struggling young people cannot continue to be in limbo.

“We were told that the talk-time-tax was imposed on the nation because of the NYEP. It is therefore incomprehensible that staff should be working several months on empty stomachs. It is not fair and somebody must sit up”, the NUGS president warned.

Ghanadot