The
University of Ghana, Legon has over the years gone through many changes
with the aim of offering better tertiary education to Ghanaians and
foreigners.
The changes range from the review of courses and programmes to the provision of new facilities and other infrastructure.
The university, popularly referred to as Legon, the name of the
village where it is located, is a member of the International
Association of Universities (IAU), the Association of Commonwealth
Universities (ACU), the Association of African Universities (AAU) and
the League of World Universities.
It was founded in 1948 as the University College of the Gold Coast on
the recommendation of the Asquith Commission on Higher Education in the
then British colonies. The Asquith Commission, which was set up in 1943
to investigate higher education, recommended among other things, the
setting up of university colleges in association with the University of
London. This was followed by a number of commissions in different
regions.
The West Africa Commission was under the Chairmanship of the Rt. Hon.
Walter Elliot. The Elliot Commission published a majority report which
recommended the establishment of two university colleges in the Gold
Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria, and a minority report which held that only
one university college for the whole of British West Africa was
feasible.
The British Government at first accepted the minority
report of the Elliot Commission and decided that a university college
for the whole of British West Africa should be established at Ibadan in
Nigeria. But the people of the Gold Coast could not accept this
recommendation. Led by the scholar and politician, the late Dr J.B.
Danquah, they urged the Gold Coast Government to inform the British
government that the Gold Coast could support a university college. The
British government accordingly reviewed its decision and agreed to the
establishment of the university college of the Gold Coast.
First site
At the time, Achimota College was in many respects one of the best
institutions in Africa. It had spacious grounds, good buildings and
compound, with a library of 16,000 books. There was therefore a
consensus that the new university college should grow out of Achimota
College, in accordance with the wishes of the people.
So on October 11, 1948, the formal opening of the University College
of the Gold Coast took place in the dining hall of the western compound
of Achimota College. Subsequently, the university college operated from
the western compound and the secondary school on the eastern compound
until the 1950s when construction work at the new site for the
university college commenced, and the university moved gradually into
the new campus at Legon.
Within the campus are the traditional halls of residence;
Commonwealth Hall, Legon Hall, Akuafo Hall, Mensah Sarbah Hall and Volta
Hall. There are also departments, lecture theatres and laboratories;
sports fields and a central cafeteria. Also, there is the Great Hall,
where major indoor programmes such as lectures are held. It has a
seating capacity of 1,500.
The university will have a new frontage once the Tetteh Quarshie-Madina stretch of the road is completed.
Students/lecturer population
The university started in 1948 with a total of 90 students, made up
of 88 males and 2 females. However, the population has increased
drastically over the past 60 years. According to the 2012-2013 academic
board the university has 37,531 students made up of full-time,
part-time, City Campus, weekend, distance education and sandwich
programmes.
When it started initially, seven post-secondary staff: Four teaching
staff and three administrators of Achimota College were appointed as the
nucleus staff for the new university.
Now the university boasts 1,139 lecturers, comprising 850 males and 289 females.
Faculties
Academic life of the University of Ghana is centered on colleges,
faculties, institutes/schools and centres of research/ learning. The
university started with three faculties - Arts, Scienc
e
and Commerce (preliminary Economics) in 1948. Now there are six
faculties -Arts, Law, Science, Social Sciences, Business School and
Engineering Sciences.
Colleges
There are two main colleges in the university. They are the College
of Health Sciences which comprises five schools and an institute, and
the College of Agriculture and Consumer Sciences which comprises two
schools and an institute.
Legon Staff village
The university has a staff village which currently has 248 housing
units for its junior staff. It was established to provide accommodation
for artisans such as electricians, carpenters and cooks who worked at
the university.
Infrastructure
As part of the process of change, the university has undertaken a
number of initiatives to realise its objectives of providing quality
tertiary education. The infrastructure include new halls of residence,
staff bungalows, lecture halls, laboratories and the construction and
expansion of roads.
Today, four new additional halls of residence to accommodate 8,000
students have been built. This is to meet the increasing demand for
accommodation by students. Securing accommodation in the past was a
problem and some students took advantage of the inadequacy of the halls
to make money. Issues that readily come to mind are the sale of beds to
fellow students and ‘perching’, resulting in overcrowding in the
traditional halls of residence-Commonwealth, Legon, Akuafo, Mensah
Sarbah and Volta.
New Halls
The four new halls named after Professor Alexander Kwapong, a former
Vice Chancellor; Dr Hilla Limann, President of the Third Republic; Dr
Jean Aka Hall, named after a distinguished alumnus who was instrumental
in mobilising funds for the construction of the Jubilee Hall, and
Elizabeth Frances Sey, first female graduate of the university, have
eased the accommodation problem faced by students drastically. Apart
from that, the new halls have also brightened the aerial view of the
university campus, from the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical
Research (NMIMR) section.
At the new halls four students occupy a room, with a spacious and
conducive environment for learning. At the new halls, rainwater is
harvested and there are biogas facilities.
Four students; Ms Belinda Tweboah, Ms Linda Tetteh and Messrs Ben
Boateng and Samuel Koomson, lauded the initiative that led to the
construction of the facilities. They said they believed that such huge
projects should be done in other tertiary institutions since the lack
of conducive environment for sleeping or relaxation was a problem.
Ms Tweneboah said being accommodated at a hall was a great relief to
her “because in the past we heard so many reports on problems with
securing accommodation”.
“I am okay here and everything is going on smoothly. These facilities have brought great relief to us,” she said.
Ms Tetteh indicated that the only problem students occasionally
experienced was the lack of water, adding “once this has been completely
solved I believe everything would be okay”.
“I like the environment and it’s good for learning,” she said.
Messrs Boateng and Koomson called for immediate action to address the water problem.
The Director of Physical Development and Municipal Services, Mr
Philip Azundow, said the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) had
disappointed the authorities since they had indicated they would provide
water to at the new facilities. Notwithstanding that, he said, the
authorities had been able to provide some boreholes to meet water needs
of students.
The university has also allowed some private developers to build
halls of residence. These are: United Nations Hall, Bani Hall, James
Topp Nelson Yankah Hall and Africa Union Hall. These are expected to
provide accommodation for students at Legon.
Tolling of roads
The roads that link the various halls, departments and lecture halls
are currently being given a facelift. They are being asphalted and toll
booths would be installed when they are completed. This means that
vehicles that enter and exit the campus will have to pay tolls. A flat
rate of GHc1 is to be paid by users of the roads upon every entry.
A total of 9.6 kilometres of roads are being resealed and asphalted.
According to Mr Azundow, Accra has expanded and many vehicles use the
Legon road to avoid traffic, among other things. The tolling, he said,
was to cater for the wear and tear as a result of the regular use of the
roads. The project is expected to cost GH¢7 million. The asphalted
roads would also have speed humps to control the flow of vehicles. The
tolling is expected to start later this month and the six entry points
to the university would have the toll booths.
According to the site engineer for the asphalting and resealing of
roads, Mr Kwaku Tsegah, 70 per cent of the asphalting and resealing of
the roads had been done.
“Everything is okay and the work is going on smoothly,” he said, and
expressed the hope that work would be completed on schedule.
Works remaining, he said, included the construction of drains and asphalting of the road leading to the Teachers’ Fund Hostel.
Commercial, private vehicle drivers
While some drivers have welcomed the initiative, others think it would increase transport fares on campus.
A taxi driver, Stephen Quartey, said driving on good roads “prolongs
the lifespan of your vehicle”, and added that although it would mean
extra cost to people, the idea was not bad.
“I know some of my colleagues will not agree with me but we must pay
for what we destroy. Everything is government but we have to be
responsible too,” he said.
Adjei Mensah, another taxi driver, strongly disagreed with his
colleague. For him, the authorities were not considering the fact that
the toll would be passed on to students.
“Once I pay GH¢ 1, I will also add that GH¢ 1 to the lorry fare,” he
said, and urged the authorities to either scrap the initiative or reduce
the toll to 50 pesewas.
However, Mr Azundow said the intention was not to burden students but
to ensure that the roads were in good shape regularly for the smooth
movement of people. Moreover, he said, the late President J.E.A. Mills
sanctioned the initiative.
Students
Rachael Ahiable believes “We don’t have to be going out and coming
as and when we feel like it”. We must use our time and money
judiciously because if you want to be going out and coming in it means
you would have to pay more”.
Moses Arthur said it was up to the authorities to take decisions that
would improve facilities and infrastructure to promote academic
activities.
“We are not going to be on campus forever. All you have to do is to
regulate your movements to save you the trouble of spending all your
money on transportation fare,” he said.
Amelia Botchway said the authorities had decided to implement the
initiative and what everybody had to do was to brace up for it.She
supported the initiative and said that state institutions tended to rely
too much on government for funding.
“I believe this would boost the internally-generated funds of the
university. Money generated could be used to put up more facilities to
admit more students. It is a good idea,” she said, adding that
“Ghanaians don’t want to be creative but do things the same way all the
time”.
Closed Circuit Television
To maintain the credibility of its examination and deal with the
practice of cheating, the university has mounted closed circuit
television (CCTV) systems in the examination halls. The authorities
would not give much detail on the facilities but believe it would go a
long way to ensure sanity during examination.
Control of students in traditional halls
To control the number of students who access the halls, the
university purchased a turnstile machine to begin a pilot exercise at
the Commonwealth Hall but before the equipment could be installed, it
was burnt by suspected arsonists on April 30, 2013 at about 2 a.m.
The equipment, bought at a cost of GH¢ 48,000, was supposed to be
used as part of the university’s measures to ensure that the halls of
residence remained decongested.
The turnstile machine, also called a baffle gate, is a gate which
allows one person to pass at a time. It can also be used to enforce
one-way traffic of people and in addition, can restrict passage to only
people who insert a coin, ticket or pass.
Other projects
There is also the Institute of Statistical Social and Economic
Research (ISSER) Conference facility for the hosting of various
programmes. The facility has been completed, creating the opportunity
for the hosting of programmes.
Other ongoing projects include the Earth and Health Science infrastructure. A teaching hospital project has also taken off.
The Balme Library pond has also been given a new lease of life. There
are 34 new boreholes to augment water supply from the water company.
The university is looking for a strategic partner to complete work
on the stadium, along with the provision of staff housing project.
Security/police station
Eleven years after the establishment of the university, a police
station was put up (1959) as part of measures to maintain law and order
in and outside campus. Petty thefts, robberies and other criminal
activities were reported in the past.
However, the Head of Security, ACP Amadu Salifu (retd), told the
Daily Graphic that there have been improvement in the security system.
For instance, he said, when he took over in 2007, the first thing he
observed was that guards had not gone through the requisite training.
Moreover, he said, some of them were not active because they were old
and weak, and “supervision too was almost zero”.
“The first thing we did when I took over was to revamp the system to
get more active guards. I convinced the authorities and we did a mass
recruitment,” he said.
Mr Salifu said the number of guards was subsequently increased from
200 to 321, while items such as uniforms, raincoats, batons and torches
were requested for to enable the guards work efficiently.
“With the new halls I think we should have about 400 guards,” he
said. Now, he added, apart from sensitisation of students and staff,
there were mobile patrols in the day and regular night patrols.
The entry points to the campus are closed at midnight and opened at 5
a.m. After 7 p.m. no university vehicle is supposed to enter or go out
of the campus.
Mr Salifu said he monitored the “security guards to ensure that we
are working”, adding that there were also plainclothes security
personnel who monitor and report security issues.
His worry is that some students did not take security issues
seriously when it came to petty thefts. For instance, he said, while
some of the students left their doors ajar, others did not assist in
investigations when into petty thefts.
“Some of them also allow themselves to be duped by confidence tricksters.
Vice Chancellor
The Vice Chancellor, Prof. Ernest Aryeetey, told the Daily Graphic
after the naming of the Atta Mills/Akua Kuenyehia Law Faculty Building,
among other things, that the university community was waking up to the
fact that it had to develop its infrastructure rapidly to cope with the
large number of students.
“We have a large number of students these days, compared to 20 years
ago. So it is inevitable for us to push the agenda of developing our
infrastructure,” he said.
