HFC offers bursary to train economics
HFC Bank has provided a lifeline to seven students, including three post graduates students, of the Department of Economics of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) with the payment of their fees, totalling GH¢15,000.
Advertisement
This year’s scholarship represents a 50 per cent increase in what the bank doles out to resuscitate the educational careers of brilliant, needy students of the department.
The bank has had a long standing relationship with the department in helping to produce some of the country’s best economic brains.
The Branch Manager of HFC, KNUST, Mr Isaac Okyere Bimpeh, and the Zonal Manager for the Northern sector, Mr Osman Saa-Adu Abdallah, jointly presented a dummy cheque to the Head of Economics Department, Dr Hadrat Yusif, on campus.
The presentation took place on the sidelines of the inauguration of the new Department block valued at over GH¢300,000.
The new block has eight offices, a conference hall, room for doctoral students, a kitchenette, a store room, classrooms for doctor of philosophy (PhD) and master of philosophy (MPhil) candidates, a graduate study room, a well-furnished computer laboratory and a library.
Mr Abdallah promised a better collaboration with the university and said the bank would roll out plans to meet specific needs of students in the department.
Background
The Economics Department is where KNUST actually started. It later became the chemistry laboratory.
The former Head of Department, Dr Sister Eugenegia Ampofo, under whose regime the construction of the new block started, said as the university grew and population increased, the rooms became stuffy and uncomfortable.
The department together with the current Vice-Chancellor, Professor William Otoo-Ellis, rolled out a plan to replace slate-constructed buildings, using its internally generated funds.
With the limited space, however, part of the building was redesigned and constructed to enhance research and academic work in general.
Prof Otoo-Ellis commended the Department for running quality courses, mainly Master of Science (MSc), MPhil and PhD in economics and expressed the hope that the scope of the department would be expanded in the coming years.