JAK Foundation, Mountcrest sign MoU on postgraduate courses
The John A. Kufuor (JAK) Foundation has signed a five-year memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the MountCrest University College to offer beneficiaries of the Kufuor Scholarship Programme the opportunity to study postgraduate programmes at the college.
The MoU will afford up to 20 beneficiaries of the scholarship programme the opportunity to pursue postgraduate programmes in Law and Public Health every year for the next five years, at a cost of US$10,000 per head.
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The MoU was signed at the residence of former President J.A. Kufuor, the brainchild of the JAK Foundation, at Peduase, near Aburi in the Eastern Region, yesterday .
However, non-Kufuor scholars can access the scholarship by joining a 12-week intensive programme at the JAK Academy for Leadership and Governance at the university college.
Development
The Founder of the MountCrest University College, Mr Kwaku Ansah-Asare, signed the pact on behalf of the college.
Speaking after the signing of the MoU, the Rector of the university college, Mrs Irene Ansa-Asare Horsham, explained that the rationale behind the choice of programmes offered by the university was to train and equip graduates with socially relevant skills which were crucial to the development of the country.
She said that necessitated the need to collaborate with the JAK Foundation, which had a programme to mentor scholars in the area of Leadership, Governance and Development.
“In terms of collaboration, like minds think alike; we thought that the values of the JAK Foundation mirrored those of the Mountcrest University College in the sense that our focus is on capacity building for development,” she said.
Values
The Rector further noted that the collaboration would lead to the extension of the scholarship programme to build the capacity of scholars who exhibited values that had the potential to impact the development of the country.
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“It is for the people who exhibit these values that we share; those who exhibit promise of leadership and good governance in terms of taking our country into the next phase of development.
“We are hopeful that this marriage will be successful. Given the calibre of scholars that we have from this programme and the grounding that they have already had, this will prove to be a success story and we are looking forward to the fruits of this marriage,” Ms Horsham said.
Leadership
For his part, former President Kufuor, who signed the MoU on behalf of the foundation, commended the university college for the partnership and said leadership was the most critical factor for the transformation of society.
He expressed the hope that the collaboration would go a long way to deliberately mentor the tertiary students on the underpinnings of leadership.
The former President, therefore, charged some of the beneficiaries of the foundation who were present at the event to utilise the knowledge acquired from the tertiary institution to help serve the less-privileged in society.
“So with this mentoring, by the time you get your degrees from tertiary institutions such as MountCrest, you know you have to go out there as a missionary to help better the lot of the many of us who have not been so exposed as you,” he said.
“We want to prepare our scholars for service in order to make our society better and not to just give them additional degrees,” Mr Kufuor added.