Students from five agricultural colleges in the country have urged government to restore their allowances or they will embark on a series of demonstrations to press home their demand.

Addressing a news conference on Wednesday, President of Agricultural Colleges Students Union (ACSU), Promise Tokoli Buernartey, complained about the lack of infrastructure and logistics on the various colleges which affected academic performance.

He said the lack of allowances have led to paying their own utility bills  and  fending for themselves unlike other training institutes whose bills and  feeding are catered  for by the government.

“We have therefore given government seven days ultimatum to respond to us or else we will demonstrate and picket at the sector ministry,” Mr. Buernartey said.

The colleges include the Kwadaso Agricultural College, Ejura Agricultural College, Ohawu Agricultural College, Damango Agricultural College and Pong-Tamale Vertinary College.

The students said government was being unfair to them because allowances of other training institutions had been restored adding that various attempts to meet the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Mr George Oduro had proved futile.

He described it as discriminatory for other institutions to be restored and theirs not restored.

“Lack of buses and other infrastructure in the colleges aside our allowances is gradually turning the colleges into white elephants,” he stated.

Mr. Buernartey said several attempts made to get the hierarchy of the ministry to address the issue have fallen on deaf ears.

He said since their allowances were scrapped in 2015, majority of students had dropped out due to lack of funds to support their tuition.

“Many final year students have dropped out due to lack of funds to cover the overly expensive tuition.”

The president of ACSU said attempts to meet the Minister of Food and Agriculture concerning their challenges have proven futile indicating a sign of total neglect by the ministry.

Students in second cycle institutions have been encouraged to develop self- confidence and pursue engineering courses which played a critical role in National development.

According to Mr Jeffery Coffin, Regional Manager for Knight Piesil (KP) Consulting, West Africa  that would enable students take a closer look at the environment, identify issues and constantly work at them and develop simple technologies that would improve upon the living standards of their communities.

Mr Coffin made these remarks in an interview with Ghanaian Times during the grand finale of the 2018 edition of schools initiative programmes (SIP), organised by KP Consulting, an engineering firm focused on the construction of bridges and dams.

The Competition which was on the theme “Dams: A hands- on Experience challenged participating schools to design a model dam for construction.

Mr Coffin stated that the annual contest was part of its corporate social responsibility whereas, it also provided a platform to train students who would want to pursue any engineering related course in the near future.

He lauded the skills showed by the participating schools, saying the level of knowledge demonstrated by the various teams in the contest was remarkable.

Mr Robert Boamah, Chairman of the SIP Planning Committee said the competition was held to promote emphasis on practical training in education as the 2018 edition witnessed previous winners and runners up of the last editions.

He said for the past three years, the project focused on model bridges but this year they decided to make it more challenging, by moving a step further and introducing something new which was also in line with the company’s core mandate.

Mr Boamah noted the contest was more challenging, however, the skills and the performance displayed by the participants in this year’s edition clearly indicated they had unique skills in engineering which needed to be harnessed to enhance national development.

He urged students who had passion to pursue engineering courses to make good use of such laudable initiative, adding that “for the past seven years there had been more opportunities in the engineering field”.

Engineer Ama Nketiah, Senior Project Engineer at KP Consulting also stated that the participating students have had their capacity enhanced to actualise the many dimensions of science learned in class into practical engineering design.

She was therefore hopeful that more female students would develop interest in pursuing engineering courses, adding that there are few female engineers and they are making great strides and this should inspire young females that they are as capable as their male counterparts”.

At the end of the competition, Saint Mary’s Senior High School (SHS) was crowned champions in the 2018 edition of the Model Dam Challenge.

Other participating schools in the contest were, Armed Forces SHS who placed second, whereas, Presbyterian Boys SHS (PRESEC), Legon and O’Reilly SHS grabbed the third and fourth position, respectively.

For their prizes St Mary’s SHS received an air-conditioner, a projector and a projector screen specifically meant for their science department.

Armed Forces took away an air-conditioner and lab tools, PRESEC went away with a projector while Oreilly grabbed an air-conditioner.

By BENEDICTA GYIMAAH FOLLEY