A six-member delegation from the Zambian Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board last Tuesday visited the Students Loan Trust Fund’s headquarters in Accra.
The delegation which comprised of three members of the board and three members of the management team are in the country for a four-day tour aimed at understudying how Ghana’s SLTF system operates so they could replicate it in their country.
Since their arrival of Monday, the team has been engaging the management of the SLTF on several areas of their operations such as the scope of work, financial sustainability models, digital transformation, governance, partnership and stakeholders engagement among other issues.
During a courtesy call at the Education Ministry, Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum announced that the ongoing reforms in Ghana’s education system was aimed at ensuring that it matches with the current global standard.
He explained that the various interventions introduced during the past seven years had transformed the education space drastically.
The Education Minister who is also the Member of Parliament for Bosomtwe stated that the ongoing reforms in the country was to ensure that students acquired the 21st century education in the right environment and not in the 19th century learning environment.
He spent much time enumerating the various novel innovations in the nation’s education sector to the delegation amidst the display of pictures and videos to support his statements.
The Education Minister described the relationship between Ghana and Zambia as very cordial dating back to decades of good relationship.
Readiness to support
He indicated that Ghana was ready to support any country that comes to seek support towards the transformation of its education system since the continent cannot remain poor due to a lack of good education.
Prudent operations
The Chief Executive Officer of SLTF, Mr Nuhu Bayorbo Mahama, stated that his outfit would continue to maintain its position in prudent management of the fund to help students to have access to the funds when necessary.
He assured the delegation of the SLTF readiness to continue providing them with the needed support to enable them replicate their success story in their country.
The CEO praised Zambia for choosing Ghana as the country they wanted to learn from and stated that they would be ready to also visit Zambia when called upon to come and guide them during their operations.
Leader of the delegation
The leader of the Zambian delegation, Mr Geoffrey Samukongo, who is the Chairman of the Higher Education Loans and Scholarship Board, said the visit was to have a valuable insight into the best practices, particularly in areas such as funding mechanisms, recovery strategies and system digitalization.
Again the visit was to help them learn about how the SLTF had been able to manage a large-scale financial aid programme so it can help them replicate it in their country.
He described Ghana’s current education system as a model for the African continent and thanked Dr Adutwum, the Education Minister and the government for their vision and efforts towards transforming the nation through education development.
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