The Third Trimester Field Practical
Program (TTFPP) is an essential component of the curricular of the University
for Development Studies. It draws its basis from the constitution (PNDC law
179),which mandate the University to blend the academic work with that of the
community in order to provide a constructive interaction between the two for
the total development of Northern Ghana in particular and the whole country at large.
The program is divided into three main parts for
three years, the first part involve coming out
with a profile of a community comprising
of Natural Resources and Environment, Population Characteristics, Social
Development, Economic Development and Historical and Local Governance system.
In year two (2), the idea is to deepen
the students knowledge of the study community through more intensive
interactions with the community members to enable students to appreciate the
developmental problems that the community is confronted with and how this can
be addressed using existing potentials within the community. These problems and
potentials gathered in this second phase will serve as the basis for further
work in year three (3).
The
third year’s work aims at finding feasible interventions to the problems of the
community identified in the previous year. The final stage therefore is a
compilation of a reviewed profile of the community’s problems and potentials
identified as well as development interventions proposed by students after an
intensive deliberation with the community members.
Objectives of the program include:
1. Helping students to develop favorable
interest in working at rural Places.
2. To expose students practically to the
nature of the development problems in deprived communities.
3. Providing useful services to rural
communities through the exchange of knowledge in order to find solution to
their problems,
4. Equip students with the basic tools,
techniques and skills required for community studies and development.
5. To introduce students to community
studies through interactions with communities.
6. To assist students to apply the
method and experiences acquired to collect relevant data, and on that basis write a comprehensive
community profile of the studied community.
PERSONAL
EXPERIENCE
I was privileged to be
part of this program from 2008-2010 in group 123 consisting of ten students
that were posted to Dadoto community a newly created district in the Krachi
East of Volta region, during which we lived and worked in that community for
two months each year.
In the beginning it was
a bit challenging, working with new people altogether, getting to know the
people in the community and adopting to the new environment as well as language
barrier and of course the fact that
the community lacks almost all basic social
amenities such as; hydro-electricity community centre, cinema centre,
communication centre, pit latrine, pipe borne water etc,
but on the bright side the peaceful co-existence between the community members
and the kind of cordial relation we established with them made our work much
easier and in the end we were able to come out with the community’s profile, identified
their problems and potentials and proposed some development interventions for
the community, so I must say the whole exercise was successful.
KNOWLEDGE
ACQUIRED
Living and working in a
deprived community, collecting of relevant data and writing a report on a
community’s profile, carrying out SWOT analysis and also writing a development
proposal for a community.
great piece....i remember my days in community.
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