About 12,000 students across the Northern Region have begun an interview process for the third face of the local tertiary decentralization initiative introduced by government for students to seek scholarships from the Ghana Scholarship Secretariat.

The students will be competing for an ₵80,000,000 support the Secretariat will disburse this year for students across all regions in Ghana.

The Registrar of the Scholarship Secretariat, Kingsley Agyemang who disclosed this in Tamale at one of the interview centers said 600 students had applied to be interviewed in the Tamale Metropolis.

“Will be interview students on four thematic themes for the next three days” the Registrar disclosed.

He said the candidates who applied online will go through an aptitude test, adding that all applicants are from accredited local tertiary institutions both private and public.

He mentioned comprehension, current affairs, aptitude test and proud learning as the four areas students will be interviewed on.

Mr Agyemang said with the new online registration system introduced by government, students outside the nation’s capital do not need to travel to Accra for the registration.

“The system is transparent and accessible,” he said.

He added the panel of interviewers are a neutral team and they would score the candidates independently and the scores will be fed directly into a national data base automatically.

“This whole thing was introduced by government to increase transparency and also increase accessibility to education. This is a novelty; it has never been introduced for almost the 60 years of the scholarship existence.”

Candidates who do not qualify for the award after this process and are interested in reapplying, would have to do so next year. They would be required to start the process from the beginning.

He disclosed that plans are far advance to open a portal for the first batch of the free senior high school students to also register for scholarships. 

“The Education Minister, Dr Mathew Opoku Prempeh has put in place a mechanism where around September or October the online portals will be opened for this first batch of free SHS scholars so that they could be given the opportunity,” he stated.