University Of Education, Winneba In Retrospective  

The System Is Working
UEW has metamorphosed over the pass 2 decades from the merging of seven different diploma awarding institutions into University College of Education, Winneba (UCEW) and now the University of Education, Winneba (UEW). The University has seen significant changes in these pass years to its current state. The University is currently going through some legal battles but I don’t get the fuss about the fruitless legal arguments that some insensitive and selfish individuals are still bundling around.

I must confess that I am not a lawyer nor a legal expert, nonetheless the few days that I sat in the court room to monitor proceedings at the court, it seemed the law of common sense appeared to be illuding these senseless selfish individuals, at least from my lay understanding of the issues and evidence adduced.

In the past 5 years proceeding the appointment of the new management, an individual became the sole proprietor of the University, a law unto himself and run it as though it was his private school. His control and possessiveness over the University was so strong that it affected a great body of students, workers and in general the operations of the University.

In fairness, I would like to use this opportunity to convey my sentiments of congratulates to the current management of the university for its strong "can do spirit" that has spurred them on to have exhibited dexterity and achieved quite a couple of things in the few months following the Winneba High Court's ruling on the application brought before it by Supi Kofi Kwayira, a former Assembly member of an electoral area in the municipality, the constituency in which the school, is situated. I am personally impressed with how the new management of the University has prioritise the concerns of the students and are attending to them promptly. Indeed if there were no students, there wouldn’t be any university to employ lecturers and administrators to manage the school.

Management of the University now has laid the foundation that guides the smooth running of the university into veritable force to compete favourably with other universities. This, hitherto had been neglected in the recent past few years in favour of a system akin to the animal farm. This yielded nothing but retrogression to the University. It appears to me that by putting the right administrative mechanisms into its full force, it has got some people gittery and so, in their desperation to cover up their own ills, they have tended to see the whole mechanism as witch hunting. I would want to assure them that there's no hunter to hunt any witch or or that matter anyone at the University. If your hands are clean, you definitely have no problems to worry about. Having dismissed the so called fuss around the University I would like to enumerate few observations which I consider to be in the right direction;

Firstly, the death trap posed by an open drainage to the lives of students under the road contract awarded 3 years ago has been promptly attended to. This would require not less than Gh5, 000.00 to provide metal coverts to avert the apparent danger it posed to students. I have observed with palpable admiration that it has been fixed with unbelievable rapidity by the new management who saw it a worthwhile project to undertake. This neglected piece of disaster awaiting explosion was a real because the school has quite a number of visually impaired students who mostly walk around the campus without any aid but their white sticks /canes. Thank God some vision prevailed through the new administration to mitigate any such diasater.

Secondly, for the first time, students of UEW were made to register for their semester courses at comfort of homes. A measure intended to help students escape long frustrating problems that fraught registration on campus. Issues with the Students Management System (OSIS) had been a major source of headache for students for a while now, none that students and lecturers would wish to see gain. This is now a thing of the past. Having said so, I am hopeful that management is doing its best to bring a far greater level of comfort to users of the OSIS.

Thirdly, all the public Universities in Ghana have their policy regarding students' accommodation on campus. UEW is not far from that. The IN-OUT-OUT-OUT is the students accommodation structure for UEW, IN-OUT-OUT-IN for UCC, IN-OUT-OUT-OUT for KNUST and IN-OUT-OUT-OUT for UG. This structure under UEW has been neglected for years now leaving fresh students to the mercy of some wicked landlords and hostel managers. It is very sad to hear some individuals try to twist the enforcement of this policy to incite students against management that their rights are being infringed upon citing the Ag. VC as the one behind this problem. It’s good to tag the Ag. VC because he is enforcing the rules. I would urge these selfish individuals to go get for themselves a copy of the Students Hand Book and turn to page 42 to abreast themselves of admission and regulations guiding the Halls of Residence.

Furthermore, the new management of the University have gone through an agreement with some Telcos to improve wireless connection on campus particularly at the halls of residence. This initiatives will improve internet connection for students and staffs of the University, particular students at comfort of their halls of residence.

Finally, to my pleasant surprise, management has in the last 1month started releasing admission letters for 2018/2019 academic year. Letters for matured applicants have also been released barely a month after the examination was written. This is first in the history of the University since its establishment. While others are trying their best to tarnish the image of UEW; the ever determined management is doing their best to raise the standard of the University.

To conclude, I would want to call on every Tom, Dick and Harry to rally behind the new management rather than pursuing their personal parochial self interest to help build our University, We must build our University devoid of political and tribal sentiments. As the saying goes “if you can't beat them, join them”

Long live UEW
Long live Ghana
BY: Alex K. Mensah
(Former NUGS President-UEW)