A 100 million Ghana cedis endowment fund has been launched by the Vice Chancellor of the University of Professional Studies Accra (UPSA). The fund known as Vice Chancellor’s Endowment Fund (VCEF) will be used to help indigent students to fund their education at the University.
Speaking at the launch of the fund on Thursday, 19th of October, 2017, the VC Professor Abednego F.O. Amartey shared that the fund was of great importance to him due to his own humble background. Professor Amartey said that he was only able to further his education through the benevolence of his relatives and he wants to ensure that that generosity is extended to students at the University.
An average of 1,350 students who qualify to enrol at UPSA are unable to do so, while, nearly 300 students defer their studies each year, and still a number of students must dropout before they complete the final year of their programme all due to lack of funding. Again, more than 1,450 applications for financial aid are received every year from students. The VCEF therefore aims to raise One hundred million Ghana cedis (GH₵100,000,000) in the first five years to be invested and distributed to qualifying students.
The Vice Chancellor appealed to the business community, government, traditional leaders, and private citizens to consider ways that they can contribute to the fund and impact the lives of thousands of students every year.
At the fund raising event, the first beneficiary of the VCEF, Inusah Ali, shared his personal testimony of how lack of funds to pay for tuition would have kept him away from the university. Inusah Ali comes from a humble background and even after doing exceedingly well on his WASSCE exams, his family would not be able fund his fees for the university. He was able to share his story on the Citi FM Breakfast Show where he caught the attention of VC Amartey who invited him to the UPSA campus for a meeting and offered him admission and a scholarship to study Accounting.
Various companies, organizations, institutions, and individuals made pledges and contributions to support the fund. There were also pledges from the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG), UPSA branch, the Alumni Association, and Ghana Association of University Administrators (GAUA) as well as faculty members.
