President J.E.A. Mills has asked the youth to imbibe the principles of honesty, humility, tolerance and honesty in the execution of their duties.

That, he said was necessary if they are to effectively contribute to the sustainable development of the country, adding that “if you imbibe these qualities, our nation can only grow better and stronger.”

President Mills was speaking at the Castle Tuesday during an interaction with the National Executive of the National Union of Ghana Students.

“As young people, you must learn the good things that we do but don’t imitate the wrong things,” the president admonished.

He said the mantra that the youth were the future of the country is not a political talk.

Responding the NUGS president’s concern about the constant reviewing of the country’s educational system, president Mills said some reviews were meant to respond to the exigencies of the time.

“When there are changes for political expediency, society does not benefit in any way,” he noted.

The Communications Minister, Haruna Iddrisu, who is a former NUGS President, impressed upon the leadership of NUGS to criticise the government where necessary.

He said such criticism must be informed and fair to the facts of the issues at stake.

Mr. Iddrisu gave the assurance that the government will do all it can to expand educational infrastructure as well as improve on the quality of education in the country.

To the expectation of the NUGS executive, he said plans were far advanced to review upwards student loans under the Student Loan Trust Fund but added that would take effect in 2010 since 2009 GETFund formula had already been approved.

Government, he stressed had released GH¢12.1 million for disbursement to students under the student loan trust.

The NUGS President, Ishmael Tweneboa-Kodua spoke on a wide range of issues.

Read his full address below:

Your Excellency, President of the Republic of Ghana, former NUGS executive here in gathered who are here as minister of state, colleague national officers.

The leadership of NUGS is humbled today by the honour done us. Information available indicates that the presidency has always been inaccessible to the leadership of our union. We therefore can only count ourselves lucky. To us, this is a dream come true and we are most grateful.

Your Excellency, as you are aware, the National Union of Ghana Students is nearly as old as our country and has made significant contributions to the development of the nation. I want to believe that the realisation of this fact informed your historic pledge to build the union a befitting complex.

That the students movement was at the centre of the independence struggle is not in doubt. Students, with the zeal and desire to break the jinx of colonial domination and imperialist manipulation of the destiny of our great nation, created a solid ground on which the nation was built.

It is natural to ask whether the nation Ghana has recognised these efforts and put in place adequate measures to strengthen the union and build its capacity to make the needed contribution to national development.

Obviously no. But there is hope. There is hope because the leadership of NUGS was relieved to see that many of the issues that are a bother on the union have been adequately dealt with in your manifesto which was bought at the last elections. The issue of office accommodation has over the years been a never healing sore on the leadership.

Your Excellency the union would therefore want to take this opportunity to express our heartfelt appreciation to your Government for your promise to put up an office complex to serve as a permanent secretariat for the students movement. You have shown commitment to your pledge by giving the union a temporary office accommodation. We are hopeful that the permanent secretariat would be handed over to the union as promised.

Your Excellency, The youth of every nation are the hope for the Nation’s future. The failure of the Nation to harness the abilities and recognize the essence of the youth therefore leads to retrogression of that nation. NUGS is however convinced of the brightness of the future of our dear nation Ghana, especially in this era in our political system when the youth are given sensitive places to handle in the Governance of this Country.

NUGS is again grateful for the initiative by your Government to ensure the fullest implementation of the National Youth Policy. This policy, we are convinced would give the youth of this Nation a Sense of direction, purpose and hope. This could go a long way to reduce the current incidents of internet fraud that is gradually affecting the hard won integrity of our nation.

Your Excellency, It is sad, that Ghana’s Educational System after about 13 reforms since 1951 still remains bookish, examination centred, authoritarian and divorces the educated from the norms of his or her society. NUGS sees it a shame, the extent to which our educational system has been given so much political touch as though it was a political debate between the NPP and NDC.

To NUGS, Government should focus on the provision of quality education. It must ensure that education in Ghana continues to be a right not a privilege. There should be enough text books in our schools, enough teachers to meet the acceptable teacher-pupil ratio and to handle courses in ICT, Technical and Vocation with adequate remuneration, provision of classrooms, libraries, science laboratories among others. We note with keen interest your promise to look into these areas.

The curricular should be such that the pupils would be able to identify their potential and unearth them to the fullest.

President of our land, it would serve Students of this Nation a lot of good if after consulting stakeholders, your Governments stumps its feet and ensures that an educational bill is passed by parliament; the legislative arm of Government that would ensure that no Government for a stipulated number of years could temper with our educational structure.

Permit me to humbly state here that, students of Ghana would vehemently oppose without fear or favour, an attempt by any political party or group of politicians to politicize Ghana’s educational system.

The leadership of the union is aware of the fallen standard of education in some regions in the country and the leakages in WAEC examinations in the country. This to us is very unfortunate and could undermine the integrity of the Educational system. We would want to humbly appeal to your government, as we advice students to refrain from examination malpractices, to ensure that the examinations council of Ghana becomes more proactive and put their house in order rather than harassing students for examination leakages.

Your Excellency, NUGS as a contribution to raising the standard of education wishes to send students to communities in the three Northern Regions in July this year for a RURAL EDUCATION PROJECT. The target of this project is to whip up the performance of the pupils in the Junior High Schools in the regions in Mathematics, English and Science. What has informed such a project is the abysmal performance of the pupils in some schools in the three northern regions in BECE.

The Leadership would as well to appeal to your Government to resolve the problems relating to the timely disbursements of students loan from the Students Loan Trust Fund, The closure of the Wednesday students walk in programme by the U.S embassy, that allows for interview for students who would want travel to the states to work on vacation ton earn some income for their education in Ghana.

Finally, Students of Ghana are aware and proud of the impending visit of the President of the United State to Ghana in July. We believe that this would afford the nation a lot of investment opportunities. No one is an alien to the fact that BARRACK OBAMA is a source of inspiration to a lot of African Youth. Our humble appeal here, your Excellency is an opportunity for the President during his visit to have a short dialogue with the youth of Ghana. This we would forever be grateful.

In conclusion would want to assure your government of the total support of the leadership of NUGS to the BETTER GHANA AGENDA and that NUGS should not be seen as a pressure group but a major partner in development. We pray for God’s wisdom for you and your lieutenants to be able to lead the nation to the Promised Land. LONG LIVE GHANA.GOD BLESS YOU.

Present at the meeting were other executive of NUGS who include, Billy Jones Owusu, General Secretary, Bashiratu Kamal, Women Commissioner, Financial Controller, Gabriel Adomako and Dan Thompson, Programmes and Projects Secretary.
The others were Simon Amanor Sackey, Youth Council Representative, GETFund Representative, Kwaku Mensah and James Hamilton, Treasurer.
The others were Education and Democratisation Secretary, Ahmed Benin and Press and Information Secretary, Malik Abass Daabu.