The Vice President and Presidential Candidate of the NPP, Dr. Mahamudu Bawumia, has always insisted that expanding educational opportunities for all Ghanaians will be a key priority of his government in his quest to empower the youth.

At his engagement with the youth of Ghana on Sunday evening in Accra, Dr. Bawumia revealed three key areas he will focus on as President to empower the youth, which are: education, skills training, and creating a friendly economic environment for the private sector to create more jobs, alongside the government.

On education, which he intimated is crucial to the development of the youth and the progress of the nation, Dr. Bawumia said his government will build on the gains from the massive investment the NPP government has made in education in the past years.

With about 5.7 million children benefiting from Free SHS since its inception in 2017, and remarkable investment in TVET, Dr. Bawumia announced his focus will be expanding educational opportunities for all, at all levels, including tertiary.

He outlined 12 bold steps his government will take to ensure the expansion of opportunities for all in education, which are as follows:

1. Increase the stock of student accommodation in our public universities and other public tertiary institutions to address the housing deficit on our campuses and make them affordable.

2. Introduce a Free Tertiary Education Scholarship for persons with disabilities (PWDs) to remove financial barriers to pursuing educational goals.

3. Integrate scholarship databases across all the public sector institutions managing such schemes to ensure full visibility.

4. Expand eligibility for the Student Loan Scheme to include all post-secondary students, including certificate and diploma programmes.

5. Prioritise and direct a significant proportion of national scholarship schemes towards training and skills development in STEM.

6. Implement in full the Centralised Applications Processing Service (CAPS) for tertiary institutions: “You apply once, and pay once.”

7. Establish an Open University.

8. Protect and enhance the Free SHS/TVET, which is truly transforming lives and changing life outcomes for millions, with more financial support.

9. Recruit more teachers at all levels, with improved conditions of service.

10. Continue to develop additional infrastructure for our educational institutions to meet the increased numbers.

11. Offer incentives for teachers to buy one vehicle each with an engine capacity of up to 1,800 cubic centimetres.

12. Continue to support teacher trainees with the payment of the teacher trainee allowance.

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