The Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Kingsley Agyemang, has commended the Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia for his role in the successful implementation of the online scholarship application portal, and the opportunity it has created for the youth.
The online scholarship application portal, a digital initiative by the government to decentralise the scholarship application process and also to make scholarship applications accessible to needy students at the local level throughout the country, was launched last year.
Following the launch last year, 200,000 young people applied through the online platform, and unlike the old system, they did so online from the comfort of their local communities without travelling to Accra.
Speaking at a ceremony in Accra to herald the opening of the portal for the 2021/2022 academic year, Kingsley Agyemang said the online portal is a brainchild of Dr Bawumia, and commend him for ensuring its successful implementation.
Making reference to the high number of people who successfully applied for scholarships through the online platform at the district level after its launch, Kingsley Agyemang stressed that but for the Vice President's innovative intervention, many of the beneficiaries, would not have been able to apply.
"There was a great variance between successful and unsuccessful applicants in last year’s application. This goes to confirm that had it not been for the hardworking initiative of the Vice-President, those 47,000 students would not have benefitted from the programme,” Kingsley Agyemang said.
Kingsley Agyemang also announced another programme that Dr. Bawumia is spearheading, which is an initiative to provide internship opportunities to beneficiaries of scholarship at the district level through factories built under One District One Factory.
"There is the need to give our graduates internship opportunities and that's the best way to go. His Excellency the Vice President of the Republic is in full support of this programme. In fact, it is his initiative and in the course of the year, he will be launching it."
This year's online student scholarship application, which will remain open until July 21, is expected to attract even larger numbers than last year, with 55,000 beneficiaries expected.
In all, Government has allocated 85 million cedis to be distributed to the 55,000 beneficiaries as scholarships for the 2021/2022 academic year.
Vice President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia