LEGON – Three months after the Residence Board meeting of 20th September, 2019 at which a decision was made by the Residence Board to implement a “Freshers-First Policy” which will see continuing students lose their beds in the forthcoming academic year to make way for the accommodation of freshers, the University of Ghana Students’ Representative Council (UGSRC) is yet to come up with a strategy to fight the policy it is reportedly against.
It will be recalled that in the early part of the first semester of the 2019/20 academic year, the Residence Board at an emergency meeting discussed a “Freshers-First” policy aimed at tackling the accommodation crisis faced by freshers and after several considerations, resolved to reserve 50% of the beds in both the traditional and UGEL (diaspora) halls to freshers going to be admitted in the 2020/21 academic year, while allocating the other 50% to continuing students.
Under the arrangement, all students (currently in levels hundred to four hundred) will lose their accommodation and would have to compete online for the 50% of beds which will be reserved for continuing students. This will leave at least 50% of students who currently have accommodation without accommodation in the forthcoming academic year, which begins in August 2020.
Student leaders who attended the meeting and are members of the Residence Board, ie. the SRC President, GRASAG President and the JCR Presidents of the various hall of residence are reportedly against the policy, but they are yet to come up with a strategy to fight the policy. Even up till now, they have not informed students of the policy to sensitize them, leaving many to wonder if they even plan on fighting the policy at all.And with a few months to the implementation of this policy, the absence of any active opposition against this policy leaves the accomodation status of over 50% of students who are currently resident in jeopardy.
An SRC Executive Committee emergency meeting held last semester to devise a strategy to fight against the plan hit a snag as student leaders reportedly could not agree on a plan to kick against the policy.