The annual Ghana Higher Education Fair for students in Senior High Schools has been held in Bolgatanga.

The fair, organised by I-texon Ghana, a private organisation in collaboration with the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Free Senior High School Secretariat is the 13th edition since the commencement of the fair.

Over 500 Senior High School students drawn from various schools in the Upper East region attended the two-day event which was held at the Bolgatanga Girls Senior High School (BOGISS).

The exhibition exercise offered both public and private universities the opportunity to showcase their programmes and facilities, interact with students and offer information on career paths.

Programmes Coordinator for I-texon Ghana, Kwaku Kwarteng Yeboah in an interaction with journalists on the sidelines of the event indicated that the event seeks to bring credible tertiary institutions closer to Senior High School students to enable them to acquire relevant and firsthand information on programmes being offered by their institutions in order to help the students make good choices.

"Our efforts, we hope, will justify the investment being made in the free SHS programme,” he said.

Mr Kwarteng further explained that since the fair started 13 years ago, I-texon Ghana has been rolling out the international fair with the aim of availing Ghanaian tertiary institutions the opportunity to meet their prospective international students to boost their revenue generation and make Ghana the preferred destination for higher education for students in the sub-region.

"In 2016, an online portal was proposed by our institutional partners to make international students’ recruitment more affordable and streamlined; we thus developed Study in Ghana Portal (studyinghana.com.gh) with the aim of making Ghana where Africa educates its youth," he added.

Institutions that mounted stands at the event included the University of Education-Winneba, Ghana Technology University College, Valley View University, Regentropfen College of Applied Sciences located at Kansoe-Namoo in the Bongo District of the Upper East Region and the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAG).

Students of SHSs across the region who have attended the fair said they learned a lot from it and hoped they would make informed decisions about their education.