Accra, May 31, GNA- Ho Polytechnic was on Saturday declared the 2009 Students In Free Enterprise (SIFE) Champions in a competition which saw 16 tertiary institutions from across the country participate.

University of Ghana which was the defending champions took the second position while, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) also took the third position with the Institute of Professional Studies (IPS) occupying the fourth position. For their prizes, Ho Poly and University of Ghana were presented with plagues, trophies and undisclosed amount of money while KNUST and IPS took home plagues and undisclosed amount of money.

As part of the winning package, Ho Poly would in October this year represent Ghana at the SIFE World Champions Competition in Berlin which would attract about 42 SIFE countries worldwide. In a press briefing, Mr. Joseph Windful noted that the winners were chosen after a 24-minute multimedia summaries or presentations of their educational outreach projects that they developed and implemented throughout the year. " The Teams were then rated on how effectively they were to create economic opportunities for people and also develop their financial literacy", he added.

He said SIFE was founded in the United States in 1975 and was active on more than 1800 university campuses in 42 countries with the focus on creating global partnership between business and higher education.

Mr. Sammuel Okudjeto-Ablakwa, a Deputy Minister of Information expressed government appreciation to SIFE for its assistance in creating wealth and employment for school leavers. He pledged government's assistance to Ho Poly in its quest to be declared champions on Berlin and urged SIFE executives to package the presentation by the various institutions for television broadcast.