Managers hostels around the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) campus may face the scare of meeting empty hostels next academic year or even tough competitions for students in their hostels due to various factors that are changing the trend of what seems to be a monopoly they have been comfortably enjoying over the years.
In recent times, investors and building experts have been unrelenting in their raising of structures and other buildings to serve as hostels and homestels for students who would not gain accommodation on campus.
This recent development creates an avenue for tough competition for hostel owners and managers because students, unlike previously, would now have the option to select the hostel of their choice based on a larger number of factors that influence their comfort during their stay.
It is now very common to hear students who do not reside on campus compare hostel facilities and make choices that are crucial to their comfort. ‘Hostel A has a plant which powers the electric gadgets anytime there are power cuts’. ‘Hostel B has provided the students with fridges in every room and someone comes to clean the bathroom every week’. If only these were the statements made, that would not have been much of a problem, but the concluding statement to these calculations is ‘Let’s see about next year’.
Apart from a factor such as proximity which remains usually constant, students would now debate on issues of affordability, facilities and extra pampering.
In a research conducted by myJCR.com news reporters at Ayeduase (a community close to KNUST), it was found that one hostel had provided students with a fridge in every room. Other hostels had secured heavy security strategies and power plants to support the power supply. One hostel in Ayeduase also provides students with cleaners who come once every week to clean the bathrooms and toilets as well as sweep and clean the rooms. These hostels have a larger chance of having a larger turnout next academic year.
Maybe hostel managers should start looking for quick ways to retain their accommodation revenues. Mine throws a party for students at the end of the year, and even with that, I still ask, how relevant is it to my stay?
