Ten newly elected executives of the National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) have been sworn into office to champion the cause of students in the country. They are Samuel Darkwah Binfoh, President((Former CSUC SRC President); Nusrat Techie Mensah, Secretary; Francis Dei, Financial Controller; Rexford Nii Armah Tagoe, Treasurer and Patience Annankrah, Women’s Commissioner. The rest are Prince Kwakye, Programmes and Projects Secretary; Bismark Elorm Akuamoah, Education and Democratisation Secretary; Raymond Kwojovi Ayihu, Press and Information Secretary and Nana Banyin Enninful, International Relations Secretary.
At a swearing-in and handing-over ceremony in Kumasi, the Chief Justice (CJ) of the NUGS, Mr Elijah Adansi-Bonah (Immediate Past CSUC SRC President) charged them to preserve, protect and defend the values of the union. He asked that they eschew all forms of social vices that are likely to jeopardise the image of the NUGS. Mr Samuel D. Binfoh, a Master of Business Administration (MBA) student at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) took over from Mr Andrews Kofi Gyan, a Bachelor of Science (BSC) Administration student of the University of Professional Studies (UPS) as president.
He will serve as NUGS President and with colleague national executives serve in office for the 2013/2014 academic year. In his acceptance speech, he paid a glowing tribute to Ghanaian students on whose shoulders the union had thrived over the years, particularly in the last decade. He said the occasion afforded the newly national executives to affirm their solemn pledge they owe to the nation as youth and continue to weave the fabric of development for the nation.
He said what made the NUGS as the true union of all Ghanaian students was the allegiance of the national executives to the idea articulated in the declaration made some decades ago. In the rising of inconvenient-costs and exploitations among Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) Candidates, he called on the West Africa Examination Council (WAEC), the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Education to stop charging BECE candidates for online results checking and schools placement. He noted that in recent BECE, about 390, 000 candidates who sat the examination spent about GH¢10.00 each from checking of results and placement to printing of placement sheet which earned the WAEC and its affiliates over GH¢3, 900, 000.00.
This to him the situation put financial burden on rural-poor candidates and their parents and that “it is illicit, it is corrupt and an affront to the core principles underpinning” the educational development drive of the country. The Dean of Students and lecturer at the Christian Service University College (CSUC), Mr Tony Adade-Yeboah chaired the occasion.
The NUGS was established in the past five decades as the National Union of the Gold Coast and currently have six Blocs to give students a national platform for a common voice . There are about 3.6 million NUGS members from the Nursery to the Graduate level . There are 39 universities and professional studies institutions, 63 Regional SRCs and 36 representaives of TTAG at the NUGS level . The National Officers of NUGS were elected on October 10, 2013 at an election on the main campus of the University of Education, Winneba. (Story Credit:http://josephkyeiboateng.blogspot.com)
