Kumasi, June 27, GNA - The Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in Kumasi is to establish a students' financial services office to solicit funds from various sources to support needy students, Professor Kwesi Andam, the Vice-Chancellor has said. He noted that students face tremendous challenges as they strive to succeed at the university, especially young girls and students from under-privileged areas as backgrounds and that the university wanted to give as many opportunities as possible for them to achieve success in their lives.

Prof. Andam was speaking at the closing session of a four-day annual National Youth Leadership Conference for 40 second-year students selected from the various secondary schools in the country in Kumasi on Tuesday.

The conference, code-named, "Students Taking Action Reaching for Success", was organized by American Peace Corps Volunteers in the country in collaboration with the KNUST.

The students discussed leadership potentials, female empowerment, stigma against HIV-positive patients, reproductive health, positive decision-making, the use of technology and the realities of tertiary education in Ghana.

Prof. Andam said in 2003, the university pioneered a policy to admit the best two male and female students from less endowed secondary schools in the country and to date, it has admitted 1,530 students from the 296 schools identified by the Ghana Education Service (GES). Speaking on "Free Reading As a Personal Tool for Development", the Vice-Chancellor cautioned school administrators to be circumspect in the range of books stored in their libraries.

He said parents and guardians should also take time off their busy schedules to know what kind of books their children are reading, stressing, "As children go through certain periods of their life, their peers and books are a vital source of information.

And as such whatever they grasp from books can form a backbone of any character attributes that will eventually constitute their adult personality", he added.

Miss Katie Keith, the Conference Co-ordinator and a Biology Volunteer Teacher at Kpedze Secondary School in the Volta region, hoped the conference would have a great impact on the life of the students. "The conference will equip them with knowledge, confidence and problem-solving skills for the necessary healthy and successful future", she said. She commended the university authorities and all those who supported them to have a successful conference.