The Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, Prof. Ebenezer Oduro Owusu, has lamented over the refusal of students of the university to take advantage of the counselling services run by the institution.
According to him, though the counselling centre is being run by receptive and highly trained professionals, students who have issues to deal with have decided to shy away from seeking help, a situation he describes as very worrying.
Prof. Oduro Owusu was speaking on the back of the case in which a level 400 student of the university, Jennifer Nyarko jumped to her death from the balcony of the Akuaffo Hall on Wednesday dawn.
According to the Legon Police, though they are awaiting a post mortem report, their preliminary investigation has established that the deceased had been battling depression for some time, and also had some issues to contend with in school. The victim, according to reports had for the past days avoided lectures living a solitary life till her untimely death.
In an interview, Prof. Oduro Owusu who was saddened by the unfortunate incident urged students who are troubled in any way to visit the counselling centre to seek help to ensure that they don’t run into danger.
“We have our Counselling services in place, and we have expanded the counselling services…we have a lot of experts, now it’s a professional entity and we keep encouraging students to patronize the services offered. But unfortunately, students are not, and this is a problem with our youth of today. They bottle up, they don’t open up even to their own parents, when there are issues they keep to themselves up in their rooms and it’s becoming worrying for us as parents and managers of institutions. I only wish that they’ll open up and take advantage of our services.”
“I don’t know why it’s becoming a trend in Ghana that the youth will not like to open up. At least they should learn to take advantage of counselling services. We’re going to insist that they take advantage of the counselling services… that is the only thing we can do to help our students. Never mind whatever situation you find yourself, there’s no problem that is too big to be solved and they should know that we cherish their lives. Their lives is for us, it’s for their family and also for the nation, because each and every individual has a potential, quite unique to that person which can help this country develop, if they appreciate that and they appreciate that their lives are not only theirs then of course they can take advantage of the situation.“
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