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Education - Africa
Information Thirsty University
March 17, 2004
It is 7:00 o'clock in the evening, and students at the
University of Development Studies (UDS) Ghana, Navrongo
campus are gathered in their various common rooms. All
eyes are transfixed on a box, an electronic box: the television.
They are watching Ghana Television News at Seven, the
only source of up-to-date information for an information
thirsty university.
The University of Development Studies is the fifth state
university in Ghana. Built on a multi campus system, the
university is scattered across the three northern regions
of Ghana: Upper East, Upper West and the Northern region.
Plans are advanced to extend the university to the fourth
region, Brong Ahafo. The Navrongo Campus in the Upper
East region is unique in many ways. The campus is home
to the mathematics and computer science departments of
the university and is the centre of the Faculty of Applied
Sciences. With a student population of about 600 students,
UDS Navrongo is a small campus, sited some 740km from
Accra, Ghana's capital city. UDS is part of a government
programme of extending University education to the deprived
areas of Ghana.
But this "experiment" in higher education is
not without its challenges, especially for the newly created
mathematics and computer science department. For a campus
with the sciences as its main focus, UDS Navrongo is in
serious crisis: the university has a computer lab of about
30 computers with no Internet connection.
Navrongo is the third biggest town in the Upper East region
of Ghana after Bolgatanga and Bawku. The town enjoys electricity
supply, water and telephony access. The only radio station
that serves the whole region is URA Radio 87.9 FM; Ghana
Television is the only source of television. There are
no cyber cafes in Navrongo; the nearest is 18 miles away
in Bolgatanga.
So for students of UDS Navrongo, access to timely information
is a major challenge. Whilst other universities down south
have two or more Internet cafes scattered around their
campuses, and many more within walking distances from
their universities, UDS Navrongo students have none. There
are only two points of Internet access in Navrongo: Navrongo
Health Research Centre and the Catholic Secretariat, both
of which are wholly owned and used by their respective
institution.
For Haruna Yakubu, a second-year mathematics student of
UDS who comes from Tamale, the 18 mile journey to Bolgatanga
to visit a cyber cafe is a big enough disincentive for
him to not use the Internet. "I know how to use the
internet and I do so when am in Tamale (the more developed
regional capital of northern region), but its too expensive
to go all the way to Bolga to use the internet at a cost
of 500 cedis (USD$3) per hour," he says. In compaison,
cyber cafes in Accra, the more developed and sophisticated
capital of Ghana, charge one dollar per hour.
Surprisingly Yakubu is now taking the Introduction into
Computer Science course, as he claims he does not know
how to use the computer apart from using it for Internet
access. Though Yakubu is in his second year and is hoping
to pursue mathematics and computer science as his major,
only now is he being introduced to MS Word.
"We the students are desperate for an Internet cafe
on campus, but both the Student Representative Council
(SRC) and the school authorities keep giving us empty
promises," he adds. "We have even suggested
that the university should charge a extra fee to our usual
fees in order to have a cyber cafe on campus, but still
nothing seems to be happening."
But the Students Representative Council's secretary, Salifu
Shiraz, says plans are under way to bring Internet access
to the university. The challenge, he says, is "we
keep meeting a lot of dead ends." He adds, "Our
studies are impacted a lot because of the absence of fast
information mediums."
In an attempt to meet the students' demands for on-campus
Internet access. The SRC decided to invest in Digital
Satellite Television (DSTV), which they were told could
be used for both Internet access and for TV. Shiraz comments
that after the investment in one dish, they have not been
able to connect to the Internet yet. Meanwhile, it is
not being used for television either, because of a controversy
over which of the two halls in the university should benefit
from its use.
"We only have access to URA radio and GTV,"
Shiraz says. "Both stations are government owned
as such we do not sometimes have the true picture of happenings
in the country."
In Navrongo, the national newspapers arrive a day late.
Yakubu puts it succinctly when he says, "For us here
we are usually a day behind in the news."
In an attempt to meet the students' desperate need for
information, the SRC embarked on an effort to launch a
campus community radio station. "We found a consultant
who advised us on the equipments to purchase but until
this date we still have not been able to find the initial
25 million cedis ($2800) that was required to set up the
station," Shiraz laments.
So where is the university administration
in all this?
Mr. V.D. Kunkpeh, the assistant registrar of UDS Navrongo,
says the challenges are daunting. "We spend 20 to
30 percent of our work time traveling to the two other
campuses in WA and Tamale just to exchange information,"
he explains.
He describes the poor conditions under which the university's
lecturers involved in research are reduced to using only
CD-ROMs as the main sources of accessing information.
"You know this is not good enough," he adds.
Whilst promises have been made to network all three UDS
campuses, that promise is taking forever to deliver. "When
we suggested they set up an Internet connection for this
campus just to start with, the central administration
objected on the grounds that a central network will eventually
come into operation," Kunkpeh says. Until then, Kunkpeh
and the members of the university community will continue
to make those long journeys just to find or exchange rudimentary
information.
Surprisingly, quite a number of students in UDS Navrongo
are very savvy with information and communications technology.
They say they are being left behind in this fast growing
information age. But their enthusiasm lives on, for until
Internet access reaches Navrongo, they have no choice
but to make the expensive trip to Bolgatanga to use the
Internet. And they still cry for the day they will have
a choice in a radio or TV stations.
Author: Kofi Mangesi (kofi@ginks.org)
is coordinator of the Ghana Information Network for Knowledge
Sharing (GINKS) in Accra, Ghana. |
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Hexxagon
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by leaping into the spaces adjacent to your opponent's
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Source: Neave
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