‘We need partners’ – Dr. Apaak calls on businesses to support Ghana’s education sector

Deputy Education Minister Dr. Clement Abas Apaak has urged businesses in Ghana to deepen their investment in education, saying partnerships between government and the private sector are essential to ensuring that financial difficulties do not deny deserving students the opportunity to learn.

He said corporate scholarship programmes complement government efforts to expand access to education and provide talented students with the support needed to achieve their academic ambitions.

Dr. Apaak made the appeal on Thursday, October 22, 2026, while representing Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu at the 2026 MTN Bright Scholarship Awards.

Commending MTN Ghana and the MTN Ghana Foundation for their support for students, he said businesses had an important role to play in national development beyond their commercial activities.

“Government alone cannot carry this responsibility, and we do not pretend to. We need partners,” he said.

Dr. Apaak pointed to the MTN Bright Scholarship Programme and the Colgate Scholarship Campaign, whose launch he said he had attended in Accra the previous day, as examples of private-sector involvement in education.

“Today, with MTN, and yesterday, with Colgate, the message is the same: when government and the private sector work hand in hand, no deserving Ghanaian child needs to be left behind for lack of means,” he said.

The Deputy Minister noted that although Ghana continued to pursue policies to improve access to quality, equitable and inclusive education, financial challenges remained a barrier for many talented students.

He said scholarship programmes helped address this challenge by enabling brilliant but needy students to pursue their academic goals.

Dr. Apaak said government had also committed substantial resources to education, including GH¢300 million in the 2026 Budget for continuing scholarship beneficiaries and new local and international scholarship awards.

He further cited the GH¢42.16 billion allocated to the education sector in the 2025 Budget, including GH¢9.1 billion for basic education.

The Deputy Minister also referenced the No Fee Stress policy, which is intended to ensure that first-year students in tertiary institutions are not turned away or made to stay home because their parents cannot pay school fees.

He said government’s efforts needed to be complemented by private-sector initiatives to reach more students facing financial challenges.

Dr. Apaak commended MTN Ghana and the MTN Ghana Foundation for consistently supporting education through their scholarship interventions.

“I commend MTN Ghana and the MTN Ghana Foundation for consistently demonstrating corporate citizenship through interventions of this kind in education,” he said.

He described such support as an example of how businesses could contribute directly to national development.

“To Corporate Ghana more broadly, I say this: initiatives like this one, just like the one we celebrated only yesterday, show what is possible when business sees itself not merely as a taxpayer, but as a genuine partner in nation-building. We encourage more of our corporate citizens to walk this path,” he said.

Addressing the scholarship beneficiaries, Dr. Apaak encouraged them to make effective use of the opportunity and prepare for careers that would contribute to the country’s development.

He said investment in young people was an investment in Ghana’s future workforce, leadership and national progress.