Dr. Richard Ampofo Boadu
The Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) has offered 5,026 scholarships to local students in the 2023/2024 academic year across the country.
Dr. Richard Ampofo Boadu, the Administrator of GETFund, who made this known at a stakeholder engagement in Accra, said majority of the scholarship awards estimated at about 74% went to public universities.
He also mentioned the digitisation of its project management, monitoring and evaluation aimed at enhancing efficiency and transparency.
He said GETFund has also in the past 15 years supported scholars attaining high education in various programmes at both local and foreign institutions, and has sponsored over 16,000 students to both local and foreign educational institutions.
The Administrator noted that so far, 11,248 projects have been initiated since the inception of GETFund from the year 2000.
These projects, he stated, include 6,272 projects at the basic education level, 3,863 secondary school improvement projects, 101 E-blocks, nine model schools, four TVET centres as well as 999 tertiary education projects.
The sponsorship and scholarships categories include general scholarships which are applications from general population for tertiary and faculty development programmes such as PhD, professional enhancement and capacity building to government organisations.
Some of the government organisations he mentioned include the Ghana Police Service, Prisons Service, Fire Service, Judicial Service, and Parliamentary Service among others.
GETFund has over the years instituted several reforms such as the eligibility criteria, digitalised application process, increased support for girl-child education as well as the speedy payment of foreign scholars’ fees and stipends.
According to him, about 2,178 vehicles were also distributed to various agencies and institutions under the Ministry of Education between 2019 and 2021, while a total of 677,470 furniture were also distributed to basic and secondary schools in the same year.
Touching on the Free Senior High School (SHS), he said GETFund had to increase some projects in Senior High Schools to enable the schools absorb the high number of students seeking enrolment.
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development, Prof. Eric Nyarko-Sampson, for his part said the stakeholder engagement will offer opportunity for stakeholders to share their experiences and discuss pertinent issues in the education sector.
By Ebenezer K. Amponsah