We’re ready to help develop basic education through our rental earnings – VALCO Trust Fund

The Executive Director of the Volta Aluminum Limited [VALCO] Trust Fund, Kelvin Yeboah, has announced the company’s intention to contribute a portion of its modest rental revenues in the basic educational sector.

He made this announcement on June 2, 2021, during a news conference in Accra.

The Trust Fund, a charity organization established by VALCO to aid in the progress of education and science, felt the need to invest multi-billion cedi in this project and plans to rebuild all of these basic schools into modern institutions between now and 2025.

According to the Director, the plan will see kindergartens, primary and Junior High Schools that are currently in deplorable conditions see an upgrade in a phased as the Trust Fund raises funds to see through the project.

He further noted that despite the project’s large financial expenditure, which totals over 3 billion Ghana cedis, “we are still eager to assist the development agenda initiative.”

The initiative begins with the construction of 18 kindergartens across the country with an initial budget of GHC 6.8 million, whilst soliciting for funds to execute the rest.

This project comes on the back of some significant discrepancies in educational infrastructure, as evidenced by a recent Education Ministry figure indicating that there are around 5,403 schools in Ghana, some of which are under trees and others in appalling states.

“Just like any other ordinary Ghanaian, we have not been happy with the current state of the basic educational infrastructure and so have decided to invest part of our small rental earnings in the basic educational stage,” he stated.

Mr. Yeboah also bewails that, despite the fact that the Ghanaian child has a legal right to basic education, there are still significant infrastructural disparities.

“Free access to compulsory basic education is a legal right that has been conferred on each Ghanaian child. With specific reference to article 25a of the 1992 constitution, under the educational act 2008 on free compulsory universal basic education, the essence of these legal provisions and respect for education, is to ensure every single child has equal access to education irrespective of the geographical location. Despite these legal provisions, there still exist these disparities,” he uttered.

Meanwhile, some sectors in the national operation have benefitted from the trust fund projects, including schools and college transportation projects, science equipment for schools and college projects, library development for schools and colleges project, as well as the tertiary student accommodation project.