THE Atebubu-Amantin District Assembly has launched an educational fund dubbed “Atebubu-Amantin Education Endowment Fund” (AADEEF) to support academically promising students of the district at the senior high school and tertiary levels of education.
To begin with, the assembly has voted a seed capital of GH¢30,000.00 and will also contribute two per cent of its share of the District Assembly Common Fund (DACF) every quarter to the fund.
To ensure the sustainability of the fund, contractors working with the assembly will also pay 0.5 per cent of the total of their contract sum to the fund, while the assembly will intermittently contribute a quarter of its available balance into the fund.
A fundraising activity during the launch of the programme also yielded an amount of GH¢9,217.00 with GH¢2,417.00 cash and GH¢6,800 in cheques and pledges.
To ensure equity and transparency in the disbursement of the fund, an 11-member board of trustees chaired by Rev. Peter Atia, a Clegyman was also inaugurated, with Nana Owusu Acheaw Brempong II, Omanhene of Atebubu Traditional Area and Osabarima Ababio, Omanhene of Amantin Traditional Area acting as life patrons of the fund.
Launching the fund at the forecourt of the assembly at Atebubu, Mr Eric Opoku, the Deputy Brong Ahafo Regional Minister, expressed the hope that the eligibility criteria for accessing the fund would be brilliant but needy students to help them climb the academic and professional ladder.
He entreated the board of trustees to observe the principles of equity, fairness, transparency and accountability in the management of the funds and further urged them to devise modern and pragmatic strategies to mobilise resources for a sustainable scheme.
“You must eschew discrimination and political considerations in the disbursement of the fund”, he told the trustees.
Mr Opoku commended the District Chief Executive (DCE), Mr Sanja Nanja, Nananom, assembly members and all who in diverse ways helped in this bold initiative to ensure academic progression of children in the district.
Touching on some of the government interventions and programmes in the educational sector for the region, Mr Opoku said the government was constructing over 69 classroom blocks to phase out classes held under trees in the region.
He said about 1,000 students in the region would also benefit from the Mathematics, Science and Technology Scholarship scheme, a collaboration between the Ministries of Environment, Science and Technology and Education.
Mr Opoku announced that the region had been supplied with 44,000 school uniforms and 717,864 exercise books for distribution to basic schoolchildren under the government’s free school uniform and exercise books policy, and that all these were geared towards the realisation of true universal access to basic education in the country.
He urged parents to take keen interest in the education of their children and admonished pupils and students to eschew all forms of social vices and channel all their energies into their studies in order to justify the huge investments being made in them by their parents and the government.
The Atebubu-Amantin DCE, Mr Nanja, said the assembly set up the fund to assist the numerous students in the district who were brilliant but could not further their education as a result of financial constraints.
He, therefore, appealed to all and sundry in the district to contribute their quota to ensure the sustainability of the fund no matter how small it was.
Rev. Peter Atia, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the fund, for his part pledged to work assiduously to ensure that the fund was sustained to the expectations of all.
Nana Owusu Acheaw Brempong II, the Omanhene of Atebubu Traditional Area, who chaired the function, commended the assembly for establishing the fund and appealed to the people in the district to contribute to the fund to ensure its sustainability.
No comments:
Post a Comment