Beneficiaries of Government scholarship in 7 regions receive package

More than 10,000 senior high school students are to benefit from the government’s scholarship of $500 each over the next three years.

The scholarship scheme is being implemented under the Secondary Schools Improvement Project (SEIP), which is funded by the World Bank.

The scholarship will cover approved school fees and levies, transport to school or bicycles, school uniforms, house dresses, physical education kits, school shoes and bags, relevant stationery and supplementary readers.

The criteria used in selecting beneficiary students indicates that the student must be an orphan; one who takes care of herself or himself; a physically challenged student without support; a student who has sickle cells; a student living with HIV and AIDS; or a student in a household with income below the minimum wage.

In Accra, the Ministry of Education gave scholarships to 2,300 students who were selected to benefit from a scholarship programme for the 2014/2015 academic year at a ceremony yesterday.

The beneficiaries were from the Greater Accra, Central, Eastern and the Volta regions, while similar presentations were made simultaneously in other parts of the country.

Each beneficiary student will be entitled to $500 per annum for three years.

Purpose of scholarship

In a speech read on her behalf, the Minister of Education, Professor Naana Jane Opoku-Agyemang explained that the purpose of the scholarship scheme was to provide support to needy students and aimed at increasing enrolment, improving retention and completion rates, as well as improving students’ academic performance, among others.

Beneficiaries

The 2,300 beneficiaries, she explained, were part of the SEIP Project which sought to give scholarships to 10,400 students from low-income families, comprising 6,400 girls and 4,000 boys, over a three-year period, to enable them to complete their secondary level education.

Prof. Opoku-Agyemang said the selection process was managed by a team including the district directors of education, heads of beneficiary schools, district girls education officers, assembly members and members of District Education Oversight Committees (DEOCs).

Disbursement

On the disbursement, Professor Opoku-Agyemang said specific guidelines had been put in place to ensure that the managers adhered to disbursement criteria.

As part of the guidelines, the list of all beneficiaries must be posted on the noticeboards of schools, district education offices and district assemblies, and parents of the beneficiaries invited to the schools to be briefed on the scholarship scheme, including its administration and payments to beneficiaries.

A similar presentation ceremony was held in Kumasi, reports Donald Ato Dapatem.

Presenting the cheques to the heads of 50 schools in the Brong Ahafo, Ashanti and Western regions, a Deputy Minister of Education, Mr Alex Kyeremeh, said schools must deduct arrears owed by students for the first and second terms of the 2014/2015 academic year and pay the difference to the parents and guardians of the scholarship beneficiaries.

World ranking

The Deputy Minister debunked a recent report by the BBC that an Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) ranking of educational levels placed Ghana at the last position.

He said Ghana was not a member of the OECD countries and, therefore, could not be assessed.


Source: Written by Severious Kale-Dery & Donald Ato Dapatem, Graphic Online(graphic.com.gh)