By Mada Augustine Ngombu
The new Academic Staff Association President of Fourah Bay College (FBC), Ambrose Tiama Rogers has told Politico that while he is overwhelmed “with joy” on being elected, he is equally concerned about problems the institution is facing.
Rogers, a lecturer at the Linguistics Unit of the college, went unopposed, replacing Dr. Williette James.
“While you are happy to have been elevated to power to have the opportunity of serving your people” Rogers said, he cautioned that he was also reminded of the fact that task ahead of you was challenging. He said the association aimed to seek the welfare of its members and to also project the image of the college.
He said ASA-FBC was facing “various challenges” but that since they were systemic, they would address them as they moved along.
According to Rogers, government has taken the responsibility to pay some staff and also provide subvention to the university, but that they are yet to have those aspects effectively addressed.
He said the lack of willingness on the part of a reasonable number of students to pay their fees had affected the institution’s operations, noting that the government had not been paying for grant-in-aid for students despite having made the commitment to do so.
He said the college needed classrooms and medical services to enable the staff as well as students to access quality health care while doing their courses. He said that with the government’s flagship programme being education, a whole lot of attention had turned to the sector, with the number of passes for entry into the university increasing, hence the need for more accommodation for students.
He said that they had been working hard to transform the university to an E-Learning institution but that the efforts were fraught with difficulties.
The handing-over ceremony took place on Wednesday November 30 at the Multi-purpose Hall at FBC campus.
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