The NATIONAL Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has expressed shock at the ‘apparent neglect’ by the John Dramani Mahama-led government as far as students’ issues are concerned.
The group, in a catalogue of instances informing their claim of neglect, stated that there had been youth related policies developed in the country and other programmes that apparently did not receive any involvement or contribution from students and their leaders.
According to NUGS, all the letters they had written to the Ministry of Education and the Flagstaff House indicating
their preparedness ‘to engage the managers of the nation about some disturbing concerns confronting the development of our nation,’ had been treated with contempt.
Sammy Dakwa Binfoh, President of the Union, in a statement to mark National Students’ Day yesterday, averred that all of those letters had not received the needed attention, adding that they were not invited to the independence day celebration on March 6 or the State of the Nation Address by President John Dramani Mahama last February.
Mr. Binfoh insisted that government’s persistent shunning of the students’ body was even more aggravated by their latest exclusion from the National Economic Forum, which ended Thursday.
‘While we applaud the Government for taking this step to build consensus and generate new ideas to attend to the present ailing economy and its attendant hardship it has brought upon Ghanaians, we however want to register our utmost displeasure about the neglect and lack of involvement of students in the whole process,’ the statement pointed out.
Mills Vrs Mahama
The NUGS president noted that the late President Evans Atta Mills,though not a youthful President, showed a great deal of commitment towards the development of student unions and other youth organizations.
Mr. Binfoh said, ‘It is however, regrettable to note that the same cannot be said about our youthful President, His Excellency President John Dramani Mahama’.
He stressed that ironically, presidents and governments outside Ghana have been showing strong interest in the holistic development of students and student unions through periodic engagements with the youth.
The NUGS President was optimistic that his colleagues throughout the country would speak out to let concerned Ghanaians know the difficulties students are facing ‘and the unfriendly policies being introduced on our campuses that are bound to increase the untold hardship being meted out to students.’
While expressing appreciation to organizations such as IDEG, TUC, IMANI and CODEO – that still see students as partners in national development – NUGS urged all students to continue to believe in themselves, work hard on their personal development and rest assured that the association would continue to fight for their welfare through every means possible.
The Only Hope
‘On this national Students’ Day, we wish to remind every Ghanaian that students’ unions have contributed significantly to the development of our dear nation over the years and the only hope that exists for our nation is not the gold mines scattered across the country, the cocoa farms in our hinterlands or the oil discovered.
The sure hope for our nation is its students and the youth in general,’ Mr. Binfoh intimated.
By Jeffrey De-Graft Johnson ([email protected])
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