The Education Minister, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, has called on African leaders to look at ways of promoting development initiatives that have the chance of turning around the fortunes of their people, especially the marginalised.
He explained that with the current state of development and global development trends, it was prudent for people in leadership positions in Africa to look at introducing interventions to change the lives of their people.
Dr Adutwum made the call when a five-member delegation from the Bayelsa State Higher Education (University) from Nigeria paid a courtesy call on him in Accra on Wednesday.
The delegation is expected to spend five days in the country to understudy Ghana’s Student’s Loan Scheme (SLS) and would have several engagements with the leadership and management of the SLT to share mode of operations, best practices, exchange ideas and experiences.
Dr Adutwum charged African leaders to strive to increase the Gross Tertiary Enrolment Ratio (GTER) since it was crucial for the development of every country.
He stated that if a country was able to increase its GTER, it would create an opportunity for a large number of the youth who would be ready to work towards the transformation and industrialisation of that country.
Dr Adutwum said that “there are better days ahead for African countries, but there is a need for all to work towards putting in place the right measures and policies towards changing the narrative for Africans.”
The Education Minister pledged to partner with the Bayelsa State Higher Education to ensure that they exchange ideas, shared experiences and best practices.
The leader of the Nigerian delegation, Dr Michael Ameagberi, Executive Secretary of the Bayelsa State Higher Education Student Loan Board, said, they started operating a student loan scheme three years ago and decided to knock on the doors of Ghana which had a barrage of experience when it comes to Students Loan management.
He lauded Dr Adutwum for the good policies he was rolling out in the country’s education sector to improve the lives of the people.
He was upbeat that the visit to Ghana would help them gain an insight into Ghana’s experience in the Student Loans Scheme among other good education initiatives that were worth emulating by other countries.
Dr Ameagberi said, their loan scheme currently was managing about 5000 students who were in school, saying that, the experiences from Ghana would go a long way to help improve the knowledge and how to improve on the operationalization of the loan scheme of the Bayelsa state which would soon be adopted by other Nigerian Universities.
The Chief Executive Officer of SLT, Nana Agyei Yeboah, assured the Nigerian delegation of its readiness to assist them with the right support to improve the operations of the Students Loan Scheme.
He pledged to help deepen the relationship between Ghana and Nigeria through an exchange of ideas in various fields of endeavor.