Insurance Cover For All SSS

THE Junior Achievers Trust International (JATI) is to extend the Life Education Assurance scheme to cover all Senior High Schools in the country in the next three years.

The scheme is a life and disability insurance policy jointly developed by JATI and SIC Life Company and is renewable throughout the entire duration of the Senior High School programme. 

The policy also covers students proceeding on vacation and returning to school after vacation.

Mr John Yaw Amankrah, board chairman, said that under the scheme, students pay GH¢16 for the whole four years while the policy pays a death benefit of GH¢200.00 to the parent or guardian on the death of the student.

On the death of a parent or total and permanent incapacitation due to ill-health or accident, the policy pays the school fees for the student up to a maximum amount of GH¢150.00 a year up to the end of his or her education.

Mr Amankrah was speaking at a ceremony at the GNAT Hall, Accra, at which 30 Senior High School students who are covered under the JATI – SIC Life Education Assurance Policy and who had lost their parents or guardians, were presented with their claims.

JATI also presented cheques covering the 2008/2009 school fees for eight brilliant but needy students who were covered under the SIC Life Education Assurance scheme.  The scheme's beneficiary schools received certificates.

Mr Amankrah said that there were more girls than boys currently signed up under the scheme, an indication that young girls of this generation were desirous of completing Senior High School and thereby addressing the gender disparity at that level.

He was proud that JATI had over the years become the largest and fastest growing NGO providing students with insight into the business environment. 

JATI was also the only credible NGO promoting enterprise education, economic literacy and the development of a “can do” attitude in cooperation with business and industry.

The Deputy Minister of Edication, Science and Sports, Mrs Angela Baiden-Amissah, in her keynote address observed that JATI was boosting education in the country through the Life Education Assurance.

She made a fervent appeal to all students to pay special attention to the study of the English Language and Mathematics. 

They should, in particular, refrain from the use of “all sorts of pidgin English” which, she stressed, had adulterated their spoken and written English.”

In an interview, Mr. Raymond Afrifa-Yamoah, Managing Director of SIC Life Company Limited, noted that his company's involvement in the life education assurance scheme was based on its corporate belief that good, solid education was the best legacy or asset that a parent or guardian could give to a child.

Mr Samuel Bannerman Mensah, Director General of the Ghana Education Service (GES) noted that new educational reform should make education more accessible, qualitative and more responsive to the current challenges of globalisation with its emphasis on ICT and teacher education, curriculum and infrastructural development as well technical and vocational training, French and Agriculture.

Mr Bannerman Mensah also urged all heads of Senior High Schools to embrace the Life Education Assurance scheme from the next academic year.  The scheme was a “poverty alleviating strategy for many Senior High School students” and a complement to Government efforts towards educating the Ghana youth, he stressed.