Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation (BOST) Company Limited has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Ministry of Education to provide scholarship for 50 brilliant needy students in the impacted communities of the company to pursue Engineering and Computer Science Courses in seven public universities.

The sponsorship package according to BOST is Ghc1.5 million covering accommodation, tuition, a laptop and a stipend to support the 50 selected students to pursue their respective courses for four years.

Each of the selected students in the scholarship scheme gets Ghc7, 500 a year.

At the brief ceremony to officially sign the MoU, Mrs Harriet Amoah, Head of Legal and General Counsel of BOST said the decision of the company to enter into a partnership with the Ministry of Education to offer a scholarship to the students formed part of the company’s corporate social responsibility.

Mrs Amoah noted that it was the policy of BOST to give back to the communities within which it operates in diverse ways, by recognising the social and developmental gaps and being a leading force within the community.

According to BOST, the proposal of the Minister of Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum to train engineers, especially those in the impacted communities in the country sounded good to the company since it has tank farms across the various regions bearing the risks in the event of any explosion.

“To us, when the children of these communities remain poor, then the time may come in the future when they must feed and one quick way would be to punch a pipeline to get some oil to sell and that would result in the distraction of critical national infrastructure and the loss of lives.

BOST jumped on and quickly recruited 50 sons and daughters of the poorest of the poor in these impacted communities of BOST to be enrolled as part of the larger vision of the Hon. Minister for Education Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum to become better people to better their communities for the safety of BOST infrastructure and Ghana as a whole because joblessness is a national security risk in our view”, she said.

Scholarship Scheme                                        

On the 9th of December 2021, the Ministry of Education wrote to BOST to partner with it to provide scholarships to needy but brilliant students throughout the country to pursue Engineering and Computer Science Degrees/Courses at seven public universities in the country.

BOST responded positively in line with its CSR Policy on Education but insisted that such sponsorships from the company should go directly to its impacted communities in the country.

BOST together with the Ministry of Education went to all its impacted communities or areas (Kpone and Shai Osudoku Districts in Greater Accra Region, Lower Manya and Asuogyaman District in the Eastern Region, Kaasi Municipal Assembly in the Ashanti Region, Central Gonja District in the Savanna Region, Savelugu District in the Northern Region, West Mamprugu District in the North-East Region and Bolgatanga Municipal in the Upper East Region).

Over 200 candidates were screened in all the above-listed communities and 50 were deemed to have qualified to receive the BOST scholarship.

The selected students have started their schooling at the Tarkwa School of Mines.

Ministry of Education Remarks

Dr Yaw Osei Adutwum, the Minister of Education expressed his excitement and appreciation to Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Limited for making his dream come through by sponsoring these 50 students to study Engineering and Computer Science for free.

Dr Adutwum disclosed that the partnership allowed 50 per cent of the selected students in the impacted communities to study Engineering and Computer Science without any science background in high schools.

He explained that there was a one-year intensive pre-engineering programme that brought in students who did Visual Arts, Home Economics and Business courses in high schools but were determined to become engineers to be taught Mathematics, Advanced Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology.

“BOST decided to allow the students in these impacted communities who have not done science to be part of this programme. 50 per cent of the students sponsored by BOST are students who had no science background in high school.

They did integrated science but they didn’t do physics, biology and chemistry like other students. These students went through a one-year engineering programme at the University of Mines and Technology (UMaT), and others began their journey from engineering because they have done science”, he disclosed.

He added that “those who did the pre-engineering programme are now in level 100 and I am informed that they are doing so well”.

“Today with the support of BOST, we have students whose future is going to be different because an opportunity has been extended to them that they would never have had. What BOST is doing is not just the fact that they are supporting students to do engineering but they are also supporting those students who would never have had the opportunity to become engineers through this scholarship.

The story of the students is going to link up with the story of BOST, an organisation that is so progressive that they are willing to bring along people who are growing up in their most impacted communities to change their fortunes and future and to make them great individuals and also allow them to be individuals who will be part of the story of Ghana that this nation’s fortunes in the coming years will be better than its past”, he said.

Source: Peacefmonline.com