The Gold Fields Ghana Limited (Tarkwa and Damang Mines) has awarded scholarships to 163 students for the 2022/2023 academic year. Of the beneficiaries, 84 are male and 79 are female, and two are hearing-impaired individuals who will attend the Cape Coast School for the Deaf. The scholarship program is facilitated by the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation, with each student receiving an annual amount of GH¢7,000. The total budget for the 2022/2023 academic year is $199,245.
According to Abdel Razak Yakubu, the Executive Secretary of the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation, the scholarship program is open to students who have gained admission into any tertiary institution in Ghana. Applicants must be natives of any of the company’s 19 host communities or must have been residents of those communities before Gold Fields started its operations in Ghana.
HOW TO APPLY
Applicants must complete a form issued by the foundation to community chiefs and assembly members. Before being considered for an interview, the community’s chief must endorse the form as proof that the candidate satisfies the residency condition. Additionally, applicants must prove that they have obtained an aggregate of 12 or better at the WASSCE level, and considerations are sometimes given to students who attended rural basic schools and continue to reside in rural host communities after senior high school, even if they did not make the qualifying aggregate score.
The Gold Fields Ghana Foundation scholarship program is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) biased, with the objective of supporting students in STEM programs so that they can take up roles in the company when vacancies arise. The program encourages socially acceptable behavior and requires honesty and integrity from the beneficiaries.
Robert Siaw, the Regional Manager-Community Relations Gold Fields Ghana (Tarkwa Mine), advised the beneficiaries to make the most of the opportunity and take their studies seriously, cautioning that their scholarships would be revoked if they failed to achieve good grades. Theodora Oduro, the Senior Assistant Registrar at the Directorate of Students Affairs at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), advised parents to provide their children with their needs to make them comfortable at their respective schools. Finally, a beneficiary of the scholarship program, Judith Reese Obeng, who plans to pursue Medicine, expressed gratitude to the Gold Fields Ghana Foundation for the opportunity.