University Of Ghana Freshers Battle Accommodation Challenges

The yearly challenges first-year students of the University of Ghana face in securing accommodation on the university’s campus continues.

This year, newly admitted students of the university are expressing frustration about their inability to get accommodation on the university’s campus when the portal for getting accommodation was opened yesterday.

The university authorities are blaming the situation on inadequate accommodation to serve the 16,000 freshmen admitted this year as the available rooms can accommodate only 6,000 students.

The Pro-Vice-Chancellor of the university in charge of Academic and Student Affairs, Professor Gordon A. Awandare, in an interview yesterday, told the Daily Graphic that the problem had persisted over the years due to the inadequate accommodation space for the number of admitted students, explaining that this year, for instance, the university admitted about 16,000 students while only 6,000 students could be accommodated.

“We were only able to upload about 1,500 rooms, but there are 16,000 students 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 the university was doing everything conceivable to curb the situation, but unfortunately it was faced with challenges like 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 showed up on campus were more concerned about their accommodation.

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Apart from the traditional halls, almost all the other halls had many students trooping there, with the hope of securing a place.