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There are five basic halls of residence for students of the University of Ghana. These are:
LEGON HALL
AKUAFO HALL
COMMONWEALTH HALL
MENSAH SARBAH HALL
VOLTA HALL
Beyond these, there are the hostels on or near the campus. They are patronized by those who can afford them. Landlords/ladies of houses near the school also earn a considerable amount of income renting rooms out to students. Many of them renovate large rooms and furnish them with bunks and rent them out at high prices.Now there is a very severe accommodation problem on Legon campus. It is a great headache for the administrators as well as the students of the school. This has been caused by at least these major factors:1. A great increase in applications and admissions to the school by students and administrators without a commensurate improvement of residential facilities. (There have been rapid developments of such facilities on and near the school in the past two years or so, but these have only eased the problem a little).2. The fact that the school is located in an urban area which is already crowded. It is not even at the outskirts of the city of Accra. This is unlike the University of Cape Coast, for example which is in a rural area, leading to a less severe accommodation problem there.The effects of this problem are obvious:There is overcrowding in the main halls of residence. People who are able to get accommodation also entertain "perchers".There is also poor sanitation where the students live. Rubbish bins placed quickly start overflowing after they are emptied. Toilets and bathrooms get unbearable within hours if water stops flowing.Students can hardly learn in their halls of residence. There is a lot of noise and rowdiness. They usually have to go to the various reading rooms and libraries in the halls of residence and departments. Vacancies at these places are even harder to get near or during end of semester examinations.The authorities have been grappling with this problem, introducing several accommodation policies, such as ‘in-out-out-in’, ‘in-out-out-out’, ‘out-out-out-in’, etc. Now here is an explanation.The academic calendar is made up of four years of study for a student. A student may be granted accommodation in one of the main halls of residence for a year or more. The year(s) of accommodation can be his/her first, second third or fourth year(s). This is expressed as in ‘in-out-out-in’, for example. Thus ‘in-out-out-in’ means that the student is granted accommodation in the first year. In the second and third years s/he will not be given accommodation. Then in the final year s/he can be given accommodation again.It is not certain whether a student will be granted accommodation in your ‘in’ year. Balloting (in which students who will be given accommodation are chosen at random) is sometimes practiced. The students who get picked are given ‘beds’ in the main halls of residence.
There are several hostels on and near Legon. But in the past two to three years there has been a rapid expansion of hostel facilities by both school authorities and private investors.Here is a list of some hostels:
Jubilee-This one is on campus.
Pentagon-This is very near campus. You can easily walk to lectures. It is made up of several blocks.
The following are quite far (about a kilometre) from campus. They have shuttle buses for students.
Bani
Evandy
Ages Abba
Prices:
The cost of lodging at these hostels depends, among other things, on the number of people dwelling in each room. Prices range from a few hundred dollars to thousands of dollars per semester.
Legon has several "restaurants". The two most popular ones are the Bush Canteen and the Night Market.
Hey, don’t get it wrong-the bush canteen is not located in a bush. It is probably the most popular spot. You can buy neat, nutritious food at affordable prices. The equivalent of 3dollars (maximum) can get a person a decent meal. Most students go there during the day.
But in the evening, it is the turn of the night market (They do sell food in the day as well, though not as much as in the night). It is very busy there in the evening, up to about 11-12pm. Like the bush canteen, they serve various Ghanaian dishes.Apart from these, students also buy food at the various dining halls of the main halls of residence. The food there is somewhat more expensive than the other canteens mentioned above.Food vendors can also be seen in unconventional locations on campus, especially in the evenings.In spite of the restaurants, many students find it more profitable and hygienic to cook their own food in their halls of residence. Electric and sometimes liquefied petroleum gas stoves are used in doing this. Much of the uncooked food is available for sale on campus.
STUDENTS
Students of UG come mainly from the various senior high schools in the country. They are also made up of the sixth formers of the old educational system, graduates of polytechnics, graduates from other universities and graduates of the school itself. My talk here is mainly about the students who come from the senior high schools.Students of the senior high schools usually work real hard to have grades good enough to be admitted to the school. But after coming, they almost always slow down. Learning, which was such pleasure at the SHS, becomes irksome. Many get withdrawn from the school for poor academic performance. I think the following reasons, and others perhaps, account for this phenomenon:• In many cases students don’t study subjects they, at first intended to study. This is usually because there is such demand for their chosen fields of study that though they may qualify, they don’t get the subjects to study. Only students with the very best results, or those who are full fee paying are taken. Now the university subjects require more effort than a person may imagine before coming. Therefore if you’re not interested in the subject you’re studying, you may not apply as much effort at it as you would if you were interested. That could put you in danger.• Conditions of learning on campus are significantly different from those of the senior high schools. Most of the changes students feel are negative. For example, students don’t attend every lecture in the same room as they used to do in the SHS. They have to move from one lecture hall to another which is sometimes hundreds of metres from the previous one. And most of them don’t have cars! Overcrowding would not allow them to study in their rooms, etc. And the situation is made worse for those students who have to board vehicles one, two or even three times to and from their various houses.• There are several distractions on campus which make it real hard to focus on books. It needs a lot of self control to stay off them. Examples are computers and the internet, television (especially DTSV and now G. These are unavailable in the average Ghanaian home), amusements, etc.
LECTURERS
Lecturers at Legon are made up of people of qualifications ranging from the first degree to doctorate degree holders. There are also people with the title ‘Professor’ (and some insist on that title being mentioned before their names!). They are generally friendly to students. They are also diligent (except for a few who are obviously lazy. I encountered one, and that’s remarkable. He would often be looking at his watch during lectures. He taught very little and often closed after teaching half way through the period).
Now I said they are generally friendly. Again, there are exceptions (at least in this regard!). I’m talking about lecturers who regard it an insult for students to do well in their subjects! They don’t like students performing well in their subjects. They try to make the examinations very difficult for students to pass well. They want only a very few A’s in the students’ results. I’m really tempted to give examples, but I’ll only go this far: some lecturers of the Mathematics, Economics and Statistics departments have made a name for themselves in this regard (This does not exclude other departments). During one end-of-semester exams, one of our Maths exam papers that was set by a lecturer had to be changed because other lecturers insisted we couldn’t solve the questions. Also, a friend who did Statistics told me that he couldn’t understand a low grade he got for a paper. When he went to find out what was wrong, he was told that he was deliberately given that grade though he deserved better, that they have a policy of keeping student grades low. A lecturer may also set hard exams to punish students for misbehaving at lectures, or in order to get fewer students to answer his/her question when there is a choice(fewer students answering your questions means you have less marking to do), and so on.
