General Secretary for the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS), Julius Kwame Anthony said the idea of bringing back the In-Out-Out-In accommodation system is the laziest approach.
His comment comes as a reaction to a short-term measure proposed by the University of Ghana Business School Associate Professor Lord Mensah on ways to alleviate the perennial accommodation crisis.
He explained that the reorganization of students in a bid to offer residence only to first and final-year students into the University’s residential facilities would not solve the problem.
“In-Out-Out-In system is a very lazy approach to solving the accommodation issue. The reason why I am saying that is that whether or not, you rotate level 100 and 200, etc in and out of the building, the fact still remains that if it is 60% of the University of Ghana students who do not have accommodation, it is inconsequential to the fact that it is 60% of the students who don’t have accommodation, so In-Out-Out-In system is the laziest approach in solving the accommodation issue,” He said.
Per this system, management of the University will have to offer admission with residence to first and final year students whilst continuing students, Level 200 and 300, seek accommodation in the surrounding private facilities.
In recent years, the school introduced a policy dubbed “Freshers First accommodation policy” to prioritize residence for newly admitted students.
Former Pro-Vice-Chancellor of Academic and Students Affairs, Prof. Nana Aba Appiah Amfo who announced the aforementioned policy indicated that the decision follows a recommendation from a committee set up to find ways to solve the University’s accommodation challenges.
“we will try to harness all the available bed spaces we have without kicking out continuing students. But in the 2020/2021 academic year, we will specify that accommodation is for only one year, after which students may reapply,” she stated.
Before the last decade, the University of Ghana run the in-out-out-in system which provided accommodation to only freshmen and final year students.
That arrangement was however changed in line with the University of Ghana’s Strategic Policy on student accommodation.
A similar system is currently being run in the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) where only freshmen are given residence on campus with continuing students resorting to private hostels at the outskirts of the campus.