Plans are far advanced by authorities of the University for Development Studies (UDS), to build a monument in honour of former President, Jerry John Rawlings at the Nyankpala Campus, where the university’s foundation stone was laid.
Apart from the monument, the former President is expected to be blessed with an honorary Doctorate Degree on September 28, 2013, from the university he selflessly gave out US$50,000 award cash from the Hunger Project to help start, when he served as president.
The event forms part of activities marking the (UDS’s) 20th Anniversary celebration, reports Accra-based Citi FM’s Abdul Karim Naatogmah.
As to where exactly the monument will be located, Senior Registrar of UDS, Dr. A.B.T Zakariah said, “We think that it is befitting for us to put up a physical structure that will remind everybody that this the man who worked so hard to get the university established… In that regard the university has decided that a monument will be put on the Nyankpala campus possibly in front of the Library.”
Dr. Zakariah remarked that former President Jerry John Rawlings, would forever be adored for his forethought of establishing the UDS to make tertiary education accessible to needy but brilliant students, from deprived communities in the Northern Region.
According to Dr. A.B.T Zakariah, former President Rawlings will be very glad to see the progress UDS has made over the years.
The UDS was established in May 1992 by the Government of Ghana (GoG) under (PNDC Law 279, Section 279) to blend the academic world with that of the community, in order to provide constructive interaction between the two for the total development of Northern Ghana.
It began academic work in September 1993 with the admission of only thirty-nine (39) students into the Faculty of Agriculture (FOA).
The UDS was borne out of the new thinking in higher education, which emphasized the need for universities to play a more active role in addressing problems of the society, particularly in the rural areas.
The university by its mandate and constituency has a pro-poor focus and this is reflected in its methodology of teaching, research and outreach services.
The specific emphasis on practice-oriented research and field-based training is aimed at contributing towards poverty reduction in order to accelerate national development.
With dispersed campuses in the Northern, Upper East and Upper West Regions, the UDS can now boast of well established faculties, including Faculty of Integrated Development Studies, (FIDS), Faculty of Planning and Land Management (FPLM), Faculty of Education(FOE), Wa, School of Business, Wa, School of Medicine and Health Sciences (SMHS), Tamale, Faculty of Renewable Natural Resources (FRNR), Nyankpala, Faculty of Applied Sciences (FAS), Faculty of Mathematical Sciences(FMS), Navrongo and the Graduate School now in Tamale.
Currently, the UDS is been managed by competent administrators, with Professor Yakubu Harunah, as the Vice-Chairman under whose leadership the university has seen rapid transformation at all levels of its advancement.
