By P. K. Yankey
Atuabo (W/R), Sept. 15, GNA – About 350 Junior High School graduates in the Ellembelle District who have gained admission to Senior High Schools have benefited from the scholarship scheme of His Royal Majesty Awulae Blay IX, Paramount Chief of the Eastern Nzema Traditional Area.
Dubbed “Educational Support to Brilliant but Needy Students,” the initiative saw each beneficiary receive a metal trunk, wooden chop box, student mattress, bucket and mosquito net.
The Paramount Chief said from next year, newly admitted Form One students would receive a complete set of provisions in their chop boxes, including mattresses, buckets, pillows, bedsheets, soap and mosquito nets.
Presenting the items to the parents and their wards, Awulae Blay IX, who is also President of the Eastern Nzema Traditional Council, said 70 students benefited from the package last year and that the scheme would be expanded annually to alleviate the financial burden on parents.
He noted that although job opportunities abounded in the Nzema area, most indigenes lacked the basic qualifications required for employment.
The initiative, therefore, aimed to support schoolchildren to pursue higher education and take advantage of emerging opportunities in the area.
Awulae Blay IX announced plans to roll out a skills development and entrepreneurial training programme for those who could not access formal education, to help them establish themselves.
He also announced a scholarship package for 10 tertiary students to study abroad as petrochemical engineers by January and September next year, and return home upon completion.
He said with a teacher deficit of 300 in the district, his office had requested 50 newly trained teachers from the Holy Child College of Education, out of which 30 had been posted by the Ghana Education Service (GES) to teach in Ellembelle.
Awulae Blay IX said he would do everything possible to support schoolchildren in the area and would institute an award scheme for teachers, with the best teacher receiving a vehicle.
Awulae Bazil Kpole, Abusuakpanyinli (family head) of the Royal Ndweafo Clan at Atuabo, called on all sons and daughters of Ellembelle in the diaspora to support Awulae Blay IX’s initiative to transform the area through quality education.
Nana Bonya Kofi, Chief of Basake, advised schoolchildren in Nzema to aspire to greater heights by acquiring higher qualifications to take a commanding lead in emerging opportunities in the Petroleum Hub Development Project and the oil and gas industry.
Egya Ewule, a teacher who received the items on behalf of the Parent-Teacher Association of Ellembelle, expressed profound gratitude to Awulae Blay IX for the laudable and life-changing intervention in the education sector.
GNA
Edited by Justina Hilda Paaga /Audrey Dekalu
Reporter PK Yankey