Bawumia cuts sod for new Trinity Seminary hostel
The Vice-President, Dr Mahamudu Bawumia, has cut the sod for the construction of a 200-capacity hostel for the Trinity Theological Seminary at Legon in Accra.
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The four-storey structure, which was in fulfilment of a promise made by the Vice-President to the institute two years ago, is being funded by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) with support from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission (GTEC).
Speaking at the ceremony yesterday, Dr Bawumia expressed the belief that a strong partnership with the government, the Church and faith-based organisations, in general, was key to achieving objectives such as the construction of the hostel.
He said he wanted to see a Ghana where the emphasis was placed on values and doing the right things, with the human factor playing its appropriate role in curbing, among other vices, corruption, bribery, crime, dishonesty and indiscipline.
“We can have a lot of educational people but if they are educated without the moral fibre, without the ethics and the discipline, then we will have difficulty in transforming our country and this is where I see a very important role of the Church and other faith-based institutions,” Dr Bawumia stated.
Collaboration
In that regard, he said, he would usher in a golden age of collaboration and partnership with government, faith-based organisations and the Church in the country and, “incentivise our faith-based organisations and I believe that if we give them incentives, just as we give our external development partners, we will see a lot more coming from them and I want to usher in that one and we will legislate those incentives in the context of the proposed charities bill.”
Touching on the role of the Church in national development, the Vice-President said: “When I look at the role of the Church and faith-based organisations, you will see that in various areas, especially education and health, the Church has been very remarkable.”
He urged the stakeholders to look forward with optimism in anticipation of the day when the hostel would stand tall as a testament to their collective vision and determination.
He described the sod- cutting as a dawn of a new chapter in the history of Trinity Theological Seminary and said the hostel would address the accommodation deficit and also serve as a hub for more learning and growth.
Education financing
The Administrator of the GETFund, Dr Richard Ampofo Boadu, said financing of education within the Ghana tertiary sub-sector was a complex and multi-faceted challenge that required collective action and commitment.
He, therefore, encouraged tertiary institutions, both public and private, to explore innovative financing mechanisms to mobilise additional resources for tertiary education.
That, Dr Boadu said, would involve partnering private sector entities, philanthropic organisations and international donors to create sustainable funding streams.
To address the challenge, he said in consultation with the GTEC, his outfit had adopted a multi-faceted approach such as the Public Private Partnership (PPP) and a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) that leveraged the strength of both private and public stakeholders.
He said the GETFund would like to use the new hostel as a pilot and an investment for the fund.
“If this pilot succeeds, we will replicate this partnership with institutions with hostel deficits,” he said. In a speech read for him, the Director-General of GTEC, Prof. Ahmed Jinapor Abdulai, explained that expanding access to tertiary education had been a critical component of its plan for the education sector.
“We have prioritised this endeavour to achieve a gross tertiary enrolment ratio of 40 per cent by the year 2030,” he said. This ambitious goal, he explained, aligned not only with the national aspirations of GTEC but also with the continental and international benchmark outlined in Agenda 2063 of the African Union (AU) and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Commendation
The President of the Trinity Theological Seminary, Very Rev. Prof J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu, thanked Dr Bawumia, the GTEC, the GETFund, and the government for the initiative and gesture, which he said, would go a long way to ameliorate the housing problems of the seminary and inspire them to improve their services for God and country.
He traced the history of the institution and said hostel facilities had run down because they had had to increase intake and place three to four persons in rooms that were originally designed for single occupancy.
Prof. Asamoah-Gyadu said: “We have cause to celebrate because a successful execution of this project constitutes a monumental milestone in our quest to provide quality theological education and pastoral formation for our students.”
He said the facility would help us to do more by cementing the relationship between the seminary and the government of Ghana.
