Accra, July 2, GNA- The American Council of Learned Societies has awarded scholarships to seven Ghanaian students, under the African Humanity Fellowship Programme, to pursue either a doctorate or post doctoral research in their areas of study.

The post-doctoral award winners include Mary Amenga-Etego, Nana Aba Appiah Amfo, George Akanlig-Pare, all from the University of Ghana (UG), Legon.

The rest are Godknows Eric Kofi Dorvlor, UG and Joseph Arko from the University of Cape Coast (UCC).

Award winners for the doctorate fellowship are Mawuyram Quessie Adjahoe, UCC and Evelyn Kisembe, UG.

This was announced on Thursday at the launch of the 2010 African Humanities Fellowship in Accra.

The Fellowship scheme, funded by Carnegie Corporation of New York, seeks to offer academic fellowships to young faculty and researchers in Africa to pursue high quality doctoral and post doctoral research in the humanities.

The fellowship also provides awards that enable scholars to publish and to help establish a network of expert advisors and peer reviewers in the field of the arts, philosophy, history, religion and languages.

Prof. Kwesi Yankah, Pro Vice Chancellor of the UG said the scheme provided the management of African universities to produce more P.H.D. and post doctoral fellows in order to boost their human resource base. "For us in Ghana, it is going to serve as an incentive to push a lot of our young ones to pursue the doctorate course in order to build our human resource base," he said.

He expressed dissatisfaction over the fact that most universities, including UG, had to fall on retired senior lecturers to do "post retirement work", but was hopeful that the Fellowship programme would produce more young lecturers.

Prof Yankey, who is also the Assistant Associate Director of the programme, expressed disquiet over some challenges most graduates pursuing doctorate degrees had to endure in their research. "Graduate work in West Africa is a big challenge, because many of the graduate students pursuing doctorate studies are unable to finish their research project on time because they have to combine teaching with research. Some even have to abandon the project mid-way while others have to be content with supervisors who appear not to have time for them," he said.

He was however hopeful that the four year-African Human Fellowship Programme, established by the American Council of Learned Societies last year, would address the issue. There were 165 applications from African university students out of which 35 were awarded the scholarships.