About $24,538 will go to six faculty members while $59,000 will be given to five post graduate students.

UMaT was selected as the sole beneficiary of the fund for five years.

To date, the fund, established in October 2019, as part of the efforts to support teaching  and learning, while building the needed human capital for the mining industry, had been injected with $400,000, being contributions from producing members who are contract mining and explosive companies of the chamber, annually.

So far they had spent $1.2million on UMaT’s Faculty of Mining and Mineral Resource Building, a Smart Classroom Board costing $51,875 to increase online participation, scholarship for 64 needy but brilliant undergraduates at a cost of $58,672, and $29,870 to faculty members to carry out research works relevant to the mining industry and the nation.

In his remark, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Ghana Chamber of Mines, Dr Sulemanu Koney, noted that, the supports from the Chamber aimed to change   the fortunes of UMaT and also effectively influence industry productivity.

He said “Our interests as an industry is to ensure that productivity is top notch, we are also talking about human capital, and it’s about competitive advantage, indeed, the most sustainable form of competitive advantage would come from human capital.”

The Chamber, Dr Koney stated, appreciated the deep collaboration with UMaT over the years, saying “we’ll continue to monitor the work of the beneficiaries of this grants and expectation for our mutual benefits.”

Chairman of the Board of Governors of the fund, Dr Stephen Ndede, who described himself also as beneficiary of industry supports, recalled that, in 2018,  the Chamber realised that, “it was about time that we consolidated our resources together to make bigger impact towards teaching and learning.”

This dream, he mentioned, paved way for the establishment of the Ghana Chamber of Mines Tertiary Education Fund in 2019, adding that, the initiative had significantly impacted not just the beneficiaries, but, also the industry.

Dr Ndede continued “As part of government’s efforts to promote research as well as development in the mining industry it has included a regulation in minerals and mining local content, local participation, regulations 2020 Li 2431, which mandates many companies to make provisions to undertake this task.

The Vice Chancellor of UMaT, Prof. Richard Kwasi Amankwah, noted that the Chamber’s tertiary education fund had been very useful to the university, especially in infrastructure support, reporting that the construction of the mining and minerals block was encouraging.

He described the Chamber’s support to UMaT students and lecturers, over the years, as a ‘game changer’.