TESCON Appeals To Prez Mahama

On behalf of the executives and entire members of TESCON Wa Polytechnic Chapter, we wish to appeal to the government on the issues pertaining to the managerial crisis of Wa Polytechnic, and the conversion of Polytechnics in the country into technical Universities.

It is undisputable fact that Wa Polytechnic is one of the youngest Polytechnics in Ghana. And as such, the school is bedeviled with serious infrastructural development challenges importantly the protracted administrative struggles, yet we do not see any concrete solution taken by the Mahama led government to the issues thereby making matters worse.

TESCON Wa Polytechnic can confidently state that aside major projects undertaken by the Kuffour-led-government to strength and ensure effective administration of the institution, no new development has since been taken place.

Even the uncompleted Projects initiated during the Kufour regime have been left to rot as works on those projects on the school campus have come to a halt with or without reasons that we are not privy to.

Managerial issues of the institution as it stands now are nothing to write home about. Students have complained and channeled their grievances to government through its decentralized departments yet no concrete resolutions are forthcoming.

Students Demonstrations on some of the "irregularities" of the institution have yielded no better results, as the Mahama-led-government continue to remain silent at a time the Polytechnic Students need an urgent attention because the institution is still at its embryonic state.

Apparently, if it were NDC party foot soldiers agitations for the removal of a Municipal or District Chief Executive, the President would have acted swiftly. Why not take same steps to address Wa Polytechnic issues for almost over a year?

We therefore appeal to the president that if he really has the students of Wa Polytechnic at heart then he should set in and resolve the management issues of the Polytechnic urgently to pave way for smooth running of the institution for academic progress in the Polytechnic community.

Now on the part of Polytechnics being converted to Technical Universities, grapevine information gathered indicates that five polytechnics were contained in the initial list for the conversion process until a deputy minister of education in charge of tertiary found his way getting Ho polytechnic into the list. This was after a failed attempt to replace Sunyani polytechnic with that of Ho.

But come to think of it, why isn't the President bothered about this alleged “influence" of the Deputy Education Minister in charge of tertiary education? And never did he also think of His own (WA, Tamale or Bolgatanga Polytechnics) at that material moment. Very disappointing indeed.

The University of Health and Allied Sciences has just been established in Ho, even another - University of Energy and Natural Resources at Sunyani, yet government under the leadership of John Dramani Mahama, chose to add a University each to these two ( Ho and Sunyani) at the mercy of others like Tamale,Bolgatanga and Wa. Where is the balance here?

Is President Mahama really committed to bridging the ecological and socio-economic gap between the Northern and Southern parts of the country as promised? Why this vast and blatant discrimination? If it's on grounds that Tamale, Wa and Bolgatanga Polytechnics lacked adequate infrastructure and the required human resource, why did the president not put measures in place to upgrade any of them before now? Because this dream was perceived around 2012.

TESCON Wa Polytechnic believes President Mahama could have shown enough commitment to tertiary education in northern Ghana by giving special attention to any of the three Polytechnics in the North, just to enable it qualify for this first phase of the conversion process currently.

It is even unfair to use the same point criteria to assess all the polytechnics because they were not established in the same year.

But it’s rather unfortunate that we have a mother in the kitchen who wants to keep us perpetually hungry. We therefore appeal to President Mahama again that, if he indeed walks his talk of bridging the gap between the north and the south, then he should consider factoring at least one of the three polytechnics in Wa, Tamale and Bolgatanga respectively into the first phase of the transition process.

Mr. President ACT NOW as we start the count.

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Abdulai Jaamiu Tiani
Tescon President
(0201581110)

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Adam Saddique Zaapayim
Communication Director
(0200299350)