The MasterCard Foundation is giving the Campaign for Female Education, Ghana (Camfed-Ghana) a push with $ 41.7 million to support 4,000 girls through Senior High School (SHS) and 2,000 young women through tertiary education in Ghana.
Under this partnership, the first lot which has 70 scholar have been admitted for 2013 academic year to a number of partner tertiary institutions while the first lot of 720 secondary scholars will begin their education journey for the 2013/2014 academic year at selected Ghana Education Service (GES) category A and B SHSs in the Central, Northern, Upper East and Upper West regions.
This package for the secondary scholars in the three northern regions and the Central region includes bursaries, life skills camps and extra tuition, while the tertiary scholars will receive tuition fees, textbooks, accommodation, transportation, meals, computers, a living and communication stipend, and career service programmes in the final year.
The Camfed-Ghana package forms part of the MasterCard Foundation Scholars Programme for three new partners, Camfed International, Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE) and BRAC who will give scholarships worth $106 million to support about 11,000 secondary students in Uganda, Ghana, Rwanda and Ethiopia, basing priority on girls.
Through the organisations, the programme identifies academically-talented young people who show commitment to making a difference in their communities, and are faced with monetary challenges.
About 15,000 young people, primarily from Africa, are to benefit from the programme which is designed to provide the beneficiaries with support in all aspects of their lives.
Executive Director of Camfed-Ghana, Delores Dickson, believed that a well-educated workforce would make a great impact on economic growth needed for Africa, now that Africa’s young people under the age of 25 would have reached an estimated one billion by 2020.
She emphasized the importance of ensuring that young people in Africa have a good education to reverse the situation where Africa spent about $ 4 billion annually employing the skills of about 100, 000 foreign expatriates.