Mr Emmanuel Sarfo, a citizen of Dormaa and a lecturer at the English Department of the University of Cape Coast, has set up a scholarship scheme to support brilliant but needy students in Dormaa-East District.
Christened “Sarfo Kantanka Scholarship Scheme”, it is designed to help to elevate the status of formal education in the area by complementing Government’s efforts in ensuring compulsory education for the younger generation.
The Scheme is also aimed at eliminating truancy among students and to encourage zero tolerance for school drop-outs in the district.
Launching the Scheme under the theme: “Education is Life”, Mr Kwadwo Nyamekye-Marfo, Brong-Ahafo Regional Minister, commended Mr Sarfo for being in tune with the Government’s focus on human resource development.
In a speech read for him, the Regional Minister described formal education as the fulcrum of capacity building and the launch pad for all development processes.
Mr Nyamekye Marfo stressed that developed countries achieved their current heights through maximum exploitation of knowledge and skills acquired from education.
He re-affirmed government’s commitment to developing the education sector, demonstrated through the sustenance of existing government interventions and the introduction of new ones to boost enrolment and academic performance in schools.
Mr Nyamekye-Marfo announced that a total of 44,000 pupils had received free school uniforms whilst 717,864 exercise books had been distributed among pupils by their Municipal and District Assemblies.
He said work was on-going to provide additional infrastructure for public Senior High Schools in the Central Region, which would cater for residential accommodation and classroom needs that was triggered by the four-year second cycle policy implemented by the previous government.
The Catholic Bishop of Sunyani, Right Reverend Matthew Kwasi Gyamfi urged parents to instill in their children, good morals to prepare them for future leadership.
The Bishop noted that human life had assumed modern dimensions, which automatically requested for the youth to be given specific professional as well as academic training to enable them to fit well into the demands.
Mr Sarfo announced that apart from his own seed-money of GH¢1,500 the main source of funding for the Scheme would come from an annual contribution of 30 per cent of his Book and Research Allowances.
He appealed to well-meaning Dormaa citizens and civil society organisations to support the Scheme to assist it to turn around the educational fortunes of the youth in Dormaa-East District.
Mr Sarfo assured the community that the Scheme’s three-man Board of Directors would be fair in selecting beneficiaries for it to ensure its objectives were not compromised.
Present at the launch were the chief of Dormaa-Akwamu and Akwamuhene of the Dormaa Traditional Council, Barima Oppong Kyeremeh Sikafuor and the Member of Parliament (MP) for Dormaa-East Mr Yaw Ntow Ababio.
Appeal for funds in support of the Scheme yielded over GH¢5,000.