The survey was conducted by Asempa Enoch Kofi of myJCR KNUST over the first three weeks of the Second Semester of the 2014/2015 academic year. It basically studied the usage of the monthly Vodafone package given to every student of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
A partnership agreement between KNUST and Vodafone Ghana makes the University issue a special Vodafone SIM card to every student of the University. During the registration of newly admitted students, the SIM card is issued with a package that is automatically renewed every month. The cost of the package is paid for by each student whether the special Vodafone SIM card is used or not.
The monthly package includes;
- 300MB of internet data
- 4 hours and 10minutes of voice calls to Vodafone users
- 50 SMS to other Vodafone users.
During the one-on-one survey, two hundred (200) students were interviewed. These students were residents of different locations in and around campus as shown below;
- 100 were campus based
- 50 were Ayeduase based
- 25 were Kotei/Kentikrono based
- 25 were Bomso based
Students were selected from every College of the University.
The Primary part of the survey
-The % of students who have ever used the SIM card – 70% (140 out of the 200)
-The % of students who use the SIM card on regular basis – 50% (100 out of the 200)
-The % of students who use the SIM card occasionally – 20% (40 out of the 200)
The Secondary part of the survey
The 70% of students (100 students) who in a way do use the SIM card were further interviewed on how they use the monthly package.
-The % of students who actively use all three packages fully – 10% (10 out of 100)
– The % of students who actively use the data bundle – 100% (100 out of 100)
– The % of students who actively use the SMS package – 10% (10 out of 100)
– The % of students who actively use the airtime for calls – 60% (60 out of 100)
The Tertiary part of the survey
The 100 students who actively use their data bundle were further interviewed.
-The % who regularly use the data (above 150mb) for academic work- 10% (10 out of 100)
-The % who occasionally use the data (50-150mb) for academic work – 10% (10 out of 100)
-The % who rarely use the data (5-50mb) for academic work – 20% (20 out of 100)
– The % who barely use or never use the data (0-5mb) for academic work – 60% (60 out of 100)
REASONS FOR USAGE
- The common reasons given by the 30% of students who never use the SIM cards was that they could not abandon their old numbers and also they had only a single phone (capable of taking a single sim). Some also indicated that they had misplaced their SIM cards and had no idea how to recover them.
- The most recurring reason for 20% using the SIM card occasionally was because they experienced bad network coverage at their hostels. Majority of these students were residents of Brunei and Hall 7.
- Only 10% regularly used their SMS package due to the various chat messengers like WhatsApp and social media apps that demand lots of internet data for sharing multimedia files.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS
- Most students only use the voice call and internet data packages.
- If network coverage in the hostels in and around campus are improved, more students would actively use the Vodafone SIM cards.
- Very few people used the SMS package, hence it could be reduced and the data bundle rather increased to attract more users.
- Most students use the data package for personal extracurricular activities rather than academics. Such as interacting on WhatsApp, Facebook, and Twitter etc.
