The Speaker of Parliament, Professor Aaron Mike Oquaye, has bid seven Ghanaian students on a Serbian government scholarship, farewell, challenging them to fly the flag of Ghana high in the European country.
The beneficiary students, the third Ghanaian batch, were selected through a competitive process overseen by the Serbian Consulate here in Ghana.
Available to students from non-aligned countries, the 2020 Ghanaian scholarship contingent include undergraduate, post graduate and PhD students in the area of medicine.
The scholarship programme, an extended one, is at the behest of the Speaker of Parliament when he met his colleague in Belgrade two years ago.
In a pre-departure meeting with the students in his office in Accra on Wednesday, Speaker Oquaye urged the beneficiary students to take their studies seriously to justify their selection.
He said as future leaders of the country, Parliament places much value on the youth, because “no youth, no future.”
According to Speaker Oquaye, Ghanaian students have excelled in their studies outside the jurisdiction of the country and that this team must continue with that tradition.
To him, their selection to benefit from the scholarship programme was not because they were any special than all others who applied, but because grace had found them.
He said the country would be looking forward to their return in the hope that they would have acquired useful knowledge for the development of the country.
The Serbian Consular General, Stephen Mawuenyegah, in his farewell message told the students to let their books be their friend, because “all you have to do is to study and pass.”
Mr Mawuenyegah cautioned the beneficiaries to stay away from Serbian politics and literally “hold one others’ hand and pull through your studies.”
With the previous batches showing “greatness,” Mr Mawuenyegah said the 2020 contingent must, at worse, maintain the standards set by their predecessors to further entrench Ghana’s position in the comity of nations as producer of fine brains.
The Majority and Minority Leaders, Osei Kyei-Mensah-Bonsu and Haruna Iddrisu, on their part said medicine was a rare and specialised field of study and that the expectation was for them to come back to serve Ghana in that area.
The students expressed appreciation to Speaker Oquaye and pledged to justify their inclusion.
BY JULIUS YAO PETETSI
