Second year students across all the campuses of the University for Development Studies Tamale, have been dispatched to various rural communities in the Ahafo, Bono and the Bono East regions of Ghana to begin their Third Trimester Field Practical Pragramme (TTFPP). the TTFPP a unique feature on the academic calendar of UDS, allows students to have the experience of blending academic work with practical rural developmental activities and projects. Students are drawn from the various faculties to go and live with rural households in order to gain first-hand experience and knowledge of the development issues in rural areas, while helping to solve some of the challenges faced by rural dwellers. Students are required to stay in the communities for up to seven weeks.

As the first cohort of students were preparing to leave for their various destinations, those who spoke to the UDS Media team expressed excitement at the prospects of living in environments that are totally different from the comfort of the city and campuses they are used to. 

Miss. Fati Jana, a level 200 student at the Faculty of education told the UDS media reporters, “As you can see, am ready with my field notebook, luggage and food stuff. I am all set to contribute to the development of my country”.

Another level 200 student Mr. Abdul Kareem appealed to the University authorities and the SRC to “facilitate transportation for level two hundred students since most have never been to the communities before.” He however added that even the delay in confirming the availability of buses was in itself an experience worth having. This, he said is because, in many rural areas, coming by transportation is not always as readily available as it is in the cities and towns in Ghana.

A level 200 student remarked, “I have lived all my life in Accra and have never been to any community, so I look forward to learning and experiencing from this”. 
Another student told UDS media “am ready to go to the community and learn from them and also give back to the society since am from a rural community myself”.

Third Trimester Field Practical Programme (TTFPP) is an academic programme by the University backed by PNDC Law 279. This act provides the University to adopt practical measures through research to fulfil its mandate of blending academic work with that of community development in order to accelerate development in the northern part of Ghana.

The programme covers two phases. First, students are dispatched to the same community in the first and second years of their studies. The work of the first year is built on the second year in a dynamic manner where students use community participatory approach in bringing up problems in communities and proposing solutions to same together with the community members.

Since its establishment three decades ago, UDS has set the pace of rural community development in Ghana by augmenting indigenous knowledge with that of academic knowledge through participatory approach of development.

Story by:
Sumaila Mohammed (University Relations)