REPORT: _RESEARCH CONDUCTED AHEAD OF THE UPCOMING SRC ELECTIONS AND THE PERFORMANCE OF THE CURRENT SRC LEADERSHIP

The Research seeks to Predict the outcome of the upcoming SRC elections as well.

Summary of key Findings 

This Research was Conducted by Infinite Research Institute, Youth Parliament and the Debate Society at UDS Wa Campus. 

A total of 306 respondents (students) took part in the survey, out of which 66% were males and 34% were females. 

Furthermore, 42.5% of the respondents belong to the faculty of integrated development studies, 43.8% were from School of Business and Law while 13.7 were students in the faculty of planning and land management. Moreover, 33.7% were level 200 students while 19.9% were level 100 students. 27.1% were in level 300 with 19.3 % being level 400 students. In terms of religion Christianity accounted for over 68%, while Islamic religion constituted 24% with African Traditional Religion being the least dominant religion accounting for less than 1% of the target population.

Popularity of aspirants for SRC president.

To determine the popularity of the various aspirants contesting for the high of SRC president, the respondents were ask to indicate the aspirants they deem the most popular. The study revealed that Nyass Mahama is the most popular aspirant with 38.6%. Nene1 emerged the second most popular aspirant (25.5%), while Major1 emerged as the third most popular aspirant (12.7%).

Choice of Candidate to be voted for

When the respondents were asked to indicate the candidate they are likely to vote for in the forthcoming SRC election, interestingly, 24.2 % revealed that they would vote for Nene1, 20.3% said they would vote for Nyass Mahama while 10.1% indicated they would vote for Major1. Also, 7.8% indicated they would vote for Charles Adadzi, with Frederick Kafui pulling 2.3%. Very significant is that 34% of the respondents who took part in the study indicated that they would not vote for any of the SRC presidential aspirants. It is worthy to note that while *Nyass Mahama* emerged as the most popular candidate as shown by the results,  He is unable to transform his popularity into vote. Nene1 despite being less popular than Nyass was able to pull more votes, beating Nyass Mahama by 4.2%. The implications of the above findings is that *Nene1 and Nyass Mahama are more likely to go for a run-off* in the forthcoming SRC election. 

The performance of the current SRC leadership.

The performance of successive SRC leadership has been a matter of concern over the years. As a result the respondents were ask to rate the performance of the 2018/2019 SRC leadership. 33.3% of the respondents think the current SRC leadership has done well by rating them ‘‘good’’. Again, 8.2% rated the performance of the leadership ‘‘very good’’ while 2% rated them excellent. On the contrary, 32.4% were of the view that the SRC leadership has performed very poorly and 24.2% rated the leadership’s performance ‘‘poor’’.

Use of SRC Dues

This chapter seeks to assess the views of the respondents concerning how they want their SRC dues to be used. By this, the respondents were asked to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the intention of the current leadership to use part of the SRC to construct the entrance of the Wa campus of UDS. The study revealed that *50.7% of the respondents agreed that the 2018/2019 SRC dues should be used to construct the campus entrance* while 47.3% of the students who took part in the survey disagreed on the contrary, with 2% indifferent as represented in figure 3.1 below.

 In addition, 54.2% the respondents agreed that SRC dues should be should be used to provide public address systems in the various lecture halls to aid teaching and learning whereas 41.3% disagreed. Very significant is that majority of the students constituting 61.4% disagreed with the suggestion that Artist night should be banned from SRC week celebration while 41.8% agreed that it should be banned.

Conclusion

The study has shown that there is a growing level of apathy in the level of participation of students during SRC elections. It has also been revealed that popularity of a candidate during elections does not guarantee victory. 

The research further revealed that most students in UDS Wa campus consider humility as the most important leadership quality. Furthermore, the study revealed that majority of students are critical about how their SRC dues are used. While more than 50% agreed that SRC dues should be used to provide public address systems in lecture halls to aid teaching and learning, about more than 60% do not think it is necessary to ban invitation of music artists to perform during SRC week celebrations. The 2018/2019 SRC leadership judging from the results of the study need to step up their efforts in order to meet the expectations of the students’ populace. 

Lead Advocates

Efo Sammy

0245229750 

Youth Parliament and the Debate Society

Infinite Research Institute

Imoro Abdul Rahim: 0246098486

Sani Abdul Salam: 0248560005

Karim Abdul Jelil: 0246085987

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