Accra Technical University (ATU) has again approved an amount of GHC 400,000.00 from Internal Generated Fund (IGF) to support brilliant but needy students as scholarship for the year 2023/2024.
It would be called in the year 2022/2023 academic year, the Governing Council approved the settings up of a scholarship fund and a budget allocation of GHC 400,000.00 for disbursement upon which 129 students were awarded a 40% waiver on tuition fees as scholarship.
The University in these regard is still exploring other avenues for scholarship grant to support needy students of which United States based charitable organization, “Progress in Education (PIE)” in March 2023 offered scholarship worth GHC3,500.00 per beneficiary to 10 needy students female students in STEM programmes as well as GHC 2,500.00 per beneficiary to 15 needy students across various disciplines in November, 2023.
The AG. Vice –Chancellor ATU, Prof. Amevi Acakpovi was speaking at the 23rd congregation ceremony and disclosed that further that Ghana National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC) also granted scholarship to 13 deserving students to pursue various HND and B Tech degree programmes for the year 2022/2023 academic year of which students received between GHC 6,000.00 and GHC 7,000.00 respectively.
‘’A total of 168 brilliant students would have dropout of school but with timely financial support from benevolent bodies and corporate institutions the needy students have remained in school.’’ he said adding that ATU was ranked 28th best university in Sub-Saharan Africa and 4th best University in Ghana by the Times Higher Education rankings for the year 2022.
The Minister of Education in a speech read on his behalf said government have immensely invested in TVET institutions to encourage the youth to tap into the potentials and opportunities in TVET education saying it is the driving force of the economy, saying government will also make the COTVET space attractive for employment generation.
He said government will continue to implement initiatives that will help enhance TVET delivery as part of the effort to scale hands on education in the country.
For his part, the Chairman of the Governing Council of ATU, Dr. Wilfred Kwabena Anim Odame, urged graduands to exhibit excellence in all working endeavor and uphold the reputation of the university.
Report by Ben LARYEA
