Finatrade Foundation, the humanitarian wing of Finatrade Group of Companies, on Wednesday announced that it would increase its scholarships to agriculture students from 20 to 100 in the 2015/16 academic year.
Mr John Awuni, Corporate Affairs Director, said the Foundation would also increase its annual bursary of GH? 800.00 per scholar to GH? 1,000.00 beginning from August this year.
He announced this during the induction ceremony of five new scholars at the School of Agriculture of the University of Ghana.
Since the establishment of the Foundation in 2003, a total of 223 brilliant but needy agricultural students from four public universities have benefited from the facility at the undergraduate levels, with 12 others at postgraduate level.
The University of Ghana, University for Development Studies, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and the University of Cape Coast are awarded five scholarships each year bringing the total to 20.
The four universities would be awarded 25 scholarships each, totaling 100 students annually.
Mr Awuni, who is also the Executive Secretary of the Finatrade Foundation, appealed to beneficiary students to engage in farming activities to encourage the youth in other disciplines to venture into farming.
He said the job market is choked and the only way for them to survive as agricultural graduates is to engage in practical farming, and Finatrade Foundation is ready with venture capital to support.
Mr Awuni said although 60 per cent of the beneficiaries of the scheme got first class after their studies, the performance is yet to be translated onto the field for the benefit of all Ghanaians.
He said Finatrade Foundation had since its inception spent more than GH? 2 million on the students, indicating that they would be re-aligning to cover other areas that could increase agricultural production in the country.
Professor John Ofosu Anim, Dean of the School of Agriculture, commended the Foundation for their continuous support to brilliant but needy Agricultural students.
He called on the students to work harder to justify the huge investment Finatrade Foundation is making on them.
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