The Academic Facility User Fees (AFUF) for 325 scholarship recipients at four tertiary institutions from host communities are now being paid in bulk by Gold Fields Ghana Foundation.
The Foundation claims that the change has assisted in removing the lag times occasionally connected with receiving student bills directly, which in turn affected their registration each academic year.
The beneficiaries, who were chosen from the Tarkwa and Damang Mines host communities, are enrolled in courses at the Universities of Ghana (UG), Mines and Technology (UMaT), Cape Coast University (UCC), and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) (KNUST).
Vice President of Operations for Gold Fields West Africa, Mr. Michiel Van der Merwe, stated, “I am sure we have all been following the current controversy concerning the increase in fees at public universities. He was speaking at the presentation of checks to the various schools at Tarkwa.
The Foundation is pleased to discover that the Minister for Education, whose competent Deputy is here today, has begun talking to interested parties about the problem.
He claimed that one advantage of mining was that hundreds of students in the mining villages didn’t have to worry about their tuition or any future increases thanks to programs like this.
According to Mr. Merwe, the Foundation was covering the beneficiaries’ tuition for the 2022–2023 academic year by paying a total of GH₵ 779,583.50 on their behalf.
Since its founding, the Foundation has paid over US$ 3.5 million in tuition, housing costs for students living in dorms, exam costs, and other authorized fees, he claimed.
He claimed that the recipients’ outstanding academic results, discipline, and all-around great attitudes had inspired Gold Fields to continue providing further support for them.
Mr. Louis Ziemah from Samahu received a first-class honors degree in minerals engineering from UMaT last year, and Ms. Beatrice Brown from Amoanda, who had just finished her National Service in Damang, received a first-class honors degree in electrical engineering from the same university, according to Mr. Merwe.
“These are the stories we love to tell as a Company,” he continued, “about building lasting value outside of mining. The Sustainable Development Goals 4, 5, and 10 are a priority for Ghana, and Gold Fields is pleased to support this effort through its Foundation.
He recalled that at the beginning of last year, the Foundation’s management paid a visit to each beneficiary in their respective institutions and explained that one of the results of the schools’ visitation program was that every year, during the extended break, students would be invited to participate in seminars and training workshops intended to introduce them to new trends in business.
Mr. Merwe expressed gratitude to the leadership groups of the various universities for the welcoming atmosphere they provided them during the visits and the assistance they provided their students.
Mr. John Ntim Fordjour, the deputy minister of education, stated that although the government had introduced the free senior high school program, which had benefited over two million students, and the student loan trust fund’s no guarantor requirements to expand tertiary assistance, more needed to be done.
Therefore, he applauded Gold Fields for making significant investments to improve not only the lives of people in their service region but also those across the nation, saying, “this is worthy of emulation and l wish other corporate institutions will toe that line.”
In order to ensure that it prepared the way for your younger brothers and sisters who want to get this support, Mr. Fordjour noted that “we are going to track your performance attentively. We must band together to ensure that we transform education in the nation because the Government cannot do it alone.
Mr. Benjamin Kessie, the chief executive of the Tarkwa-Nsuaem Municipality, and Mr. Robert Wisdom Cudjoe, the member of parliament for the Prestea Huni-Valley Constituency, made a request to the kids to work well in class so that Gold Fields might provide scholarships to additional students.
The divisional chief of Bosomtwe, Nana Kwabena Amponsah IV, and Nana Dr. Adarkwa Bediako III, the gyasehene of the Apinto Divisional Area, respectively, thanked Gold Fields for launching the scholarship program and cautioned the recipients that the program would only be maintained if they wisely utilized the significant sums of money that Gold Fields was investing in their education.
Miss Amanda Toku, a recipient, made a commitment on behalf of her coworkers to diligently focus on their academics in order to justify the aid they have received.
In order to help deserving yet gifted children from its host communities pursue full-time studies at all levels of education, Gold Fields 2002 launched a scholarship program. This program was formalized in 2004 under the name of the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation.
The scholarship program has so far helped 2,448 young people from the Tarkwa and Damang host communities, and 531 students are currently receiving financial aid through the program in academic institutions all around Ghana.