160 students awarded scholarships

One hundred and sixty children drawn from 16 Primary and Junior High Schools in the New Juaben Municipality in the Eastern Region, were Tuesday presented with Scholarship packages by the Ambassadors Girls Scholarship Programme - a component of African Education Initiative. Each beneficiary was presented with text books and learning materials worth GH¢100.

Their parents, numbering 160, were also offered free National Health Insurance cover worth GH¢12 each by the AGSP. The whole package cost GH¢180,000.

Managed by an American Non Governmental Organsation - World Education Incorporated - AGSP awards scholarships to vulnerable school children in Africa.

In an address read for him, Tawiah Agyarko-Kwateng, Programme Officer of World Education - Ghana explained that it was based on request from numerous communities that AGSP had supported vulnerable girls over the past three years.

The donors in this academic year decided to include vulnerable boys in the scholarship programme thus, all the 160 beneficiaries were all boys. This, she said, was to ensure that vulnerable boys who were in need of support to attend school also get the opportunity that had been made available to their female counterparts.

Mrs Agyarko-Kwateng said AGSP's objective is to contribute in correcting the gender imbalance in education in Africa for sustainable development. She said when the African Education Initiative was put in place in 2002, girls represented 60 percent of 40 million children in Africa who had no access to education.

The Programme Office said the AGSP had set itself the task of providing over 550,000 scholarships to vulnerable students in the next four to five years.

She said over 300,000 scholarships had been provided in Africa. Mrs Agyarko-Kwateng disclosed that over 2,500 girls and 650 boys in the Northern, Upper East and Eastern Regions receive bursary every academic year.

In the Northern region, she said beneficiaries also receive bicycles and or bags of maize, millet or rice and mosquito treated nets. She said critically important to the programme is the need to get beneficiaries with role models, access to sound advice, and guidance and counseling for their future.

K. Darko-Asumadu, Eastern Regional Secretary of Ghana Red Cross Society and Programme Director, announced that examination fees for beneficiaries in JHS 3 had been paid by the AGSP.

Godfred Asamoah, Eastern Regional Deputy Director of Education, expressed appreciation to the NGO for giving relief to the students and their parents. He also thanked the American ambassadors for coming together to contribute towards the education of the vulnerable children in Africa.