The Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, has contributed to boosting the initiative of the government to provide free, quality education at the secondary school level in Ghana by donating 10,000 copies of Maths textbooks to the Ministry of Education.
Other public and private sector organizations such as the Ghana Revenue Authority, the Ghana Shippers’ Authority, the Ghana Maritime Authority, National Investment Bank, Heritage Bank, among others all donated thousands of the mathematics books to support secondary school education as part of the government’s flagship educational policy to provide free education to second cycle schools.
The President of the Republic of Ghana, His Excellency Nana Addo Danquah Akufo Addo had said that, as part of the free SHS program, textbooks, particularly the core ones, be made free.
It is in this light that, these corporations supported this noble initiative.
“For the first time in about 10 years, we had the president instructing that, as part of the Free SHS, text books become free, the core courses at least,” the Minister of Education stated.
The Minister of Education, Dr. Matthew Opoku Prempeh who graced the ceremony to receive the donation, thanked the corporations for their act of benevolence.
He revealed that such contributions to the study of mathematics will go a long way to improve the current fall in the interest of Senior High School students annually.
“I hope the organizations that donated, feel better about themselves. These are organizations that consume a lot of mathematics in their daily lives. And we have realized that this country, over the years, our maths results are not getting better. There is the need to change the status quo if we want to become economically developed,” he stated.
He urged other corporate entities to also endeavour to support the Education sector as it would work into the country’s overall benefit.
“For the first time in about 10 years, we had the president instructing that, as part of the Free SHS, text books become free, the core courses at least”.
The Marketing and Corporate Affairs Manager of GPHA, Abena Serwaa Opoku-Fosu said GPHA considers education seriously in its Corporate Social Responsibility and embraced the opportunity to support students with textbooks.
“Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority concentrates our Corporate Social Responsibility on three main areas: Education, Health and the Environment. When we got the letter, asking us to support, we thought that it was a very good programme to be associated with seeing that the Government wants to make free quality education at the secondary level for all children because literacy is key to the development of our nation,” she said.
Ghana Shippers’ Authority CEO, Benonita Bismarck said her organisation donated the books with the aim of supporting the President of Ghana’s vision for education.
“Being a Government Agency, we should buy into the President’s vision hence the reason for the Shippers’ Authority donating the books to support this laudable program,” she added.
Assistant Commissioner, Public Relations of GRA added that the Authority is investing in the youth so as to develop them into an able labour force in future for the country.
“GRA is simply investing in the nation’s labour force trying to make sure that our children in the free SHS program are well educated and we churn out people who can contribute meaningfully to the country in the future,