AMU’s Students Service Support Centre (SSSC) is bracing up for slew of activities as the new Academic Calendar year inches closer, said the Director, Dr Teshome Yirgu Bayu.

SSSC based at Main Campus, is an umbrella body for various student’s clubs i.e. Student Union, Anti-sexual Harassment Club, Physically-Challenged Students Club, Peace Initiative Club, Environment Club and HIV/AIDS Club.

‘‘Ours is the key department that has over 1000 support-admin staff who render diversified services that includes accommodation, food, health, culture & sports, guidance and counseling, students’ code of conduct & ethics, career development and students’ organizations etc.

Now, we are gearing up to set entire logistics in order to ensure better and effective delivery of services in the new academic year. Therefore, daylong orientation workshop in that direction for staff based in all campuses was organized.

Workshop for 775 Main Campus and 211 Abaya Campus staff was held on September 18 & 19. For 166 Nech Sar Campus staff and 202 staff of Chamo campus it was held on 20th and 24th September, 2013.

‘‘It’s sort of stock-taking workshop where issues like lacuna in last year’s service delivery on food, accommodation, health guidance etc. will be looked into. We will also chalk out a plan to iron out those weaknesses and better our services. We will also discuss campus-centric issues like electrical, water, sewerage, canteen and shortage of staff.’’ Dr Teshome added.

This year SSSC would be recruiting over 500 new staff to strengthen our service delivery that will help to offset the existing workload. For the new calendar year, we have planned few workshops, meetings and symposiums to tackle student-related issues are as follow.

Training on ethical code of conduct for staff and students is likely to be held in the month of October this year. Workshop on good governance and service delivery is slated for November, workshop on guidance & counseling for students in December and training on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS & sexual harassment in each campus in January 2014, Dr Teshome revealed.

He also informed that in a move to make service delivery more accessible and transparent, erstwhile system has been decentralized. Now all decision will be taken at campus level. Main Campus office will evaluate, control, guide and provide technical assistance to all campus-based offices those manned by co-coordinators are accountable to the director.

By Philips Joseph