Inadequate residential facilities for staff and students have forced Nustrat Jahan Ahmadiyya College of Education to reduce the number of student admission.

The college this year has been able to admit only 352 students including 20 visually impaired persons, out of the 520 applicants who qualified for admission.

However, there is congestion at the dormitories and the students have no place for assembly.

The Principal of the College, Hajia Ismail Asmau, disclosed the challenges the school have been facing at the 9th matriculation of the college located in Wa, the Upper West Region capital.

A total of 1,205 applications were received by the Nustrat Jahan Ahmadiyya College of Education for admission to the various programmes.

Out of this number, 520 representing 43% qualified for admission.

However, the college was able to admit 352 students representing 67.7% of qualified applicants. Of those admitted 106 are females.

Hajia Ismail Asmau noted that the college is poised to providing access to teacher education to as many qualified applicants, but was constrained by the inadequate academic and residential facilities for staff and students.

The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) awarded a contract for the construction of an auditorium which should have been due for completion this year, however, constructional challenges have stalled work on the project.

Hajia Ismail, however, was optimistic that the ongoing projects at the school will soon be completed for use by the students.

She admonished the matriculants to study hard and also acquaint themselves with the rules and regulations governing the school in order to guide their 3-year study at the school.

She warned that the school will not countenance stealing and physical assault, drunkenness, examination malpractice and above all failure to redeem the pass mark in one subject after a year, which will result in the student being outrightly withdrawn.

NJA College of Education is the only integrated college of education in the northern part of the country.  

The college is being supported by the Transforming Teacher Education and Learning (T-TEL) Challenge Fund.

The T-TEL Programme aims to transform the delivery of pre-service teacher education in Ghana by improving the quality of teaching and learning through support to all 38 colleges of education between 2014 and 2018.

The Programme is supported by the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and managed by Cambridge Education in association with the Open University of UK.

Due to the introduction of the programme, the number of visually impaired persons at the school increased from 5 in the previous years to 20 this year.