President Nana Akufo-Addo
About 30,000 tertiary students across Ghana have received scholarships from President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo.
Their tuition fees were accordingly paid under the District Scholarship Scheme run by the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat (GSS).
The District Scholarship Scheme was introduced by President Akufo-Addo and was launched in Takoradi in the Western Region in July, this year.
The scheme is expected to drive the government’s developmental agenda by empowering the metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) to award scholarships to not only needy but brilliant students but also deserving ones.
Registrar of the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat, Kingsley Agyemang, who made this known to the media, said funding amounts of GH¢60,000, GH¢80,000 and GH¢100,000 were made available to the MMDAs.
He said the assemblies organised selection interviews for applicants who applied for the fund and made recommendations for the awards. And 30,000 students from the MMDAs, who qualified after appearing before the District Scholarship Review Committee, were awarded the scholarships.
According to Mr. Agyeman, the committee comprised chief executives of the assemblies as the chairpersons, representatives from the traditional authorities and from tertiary institutions or the Ghana Education Service in the assemblies.
He revealed that the beneficiaries are pursuing various courses from diploma to PhD level.
Nana Walks The Talk
He stated that “today we have seen that Ghanaians voted for a President who ‘walks the talk’.”
“Free meritorious tertiary education is a possibility and it is here to stay,” he said.
In his view, the scheme will ensure that scholarship opportunities are distributed nationwide to the needy but brilliant students through the MMDAs.
He stated that the scheme would not only ensure accessibility but also transparency.
According to him, “In terms of transparency, the Scholarship Secretariat has and continues to operate an open-door policy. What this decentralisation seeks to do is to now take this open-door policy right to the doorstep of students in their districts.” “We are making sure all the major stakeholders become part of the process,” he added.
BY Melvin Tarlue