The NSA GHANA on Sunday 20th March 2016 organised the launch of the 2016 edition of the prestigious National Students Awards at the SSNIT Guest house in Accra. The event which had the theme: Quality, Affordable and Accessible Education, the key to National Development was chaired by the renowned journalist of supersports fame;Yaw Ampofo Ankrah, with the keynote address delivered by Lawyer Ace Ankomah.

The Chairman, Mr Yaw Ampofo Ankrah in his opening remarks, highlighted the relevance of Education in the development of this country, stressing on the need for the Ghanaian students having emerged from a history of strikes, demonstrations, aluta etc to adopt the strategy  of decisive issue-based engagement with stakeholders on matters of student interest. He also tasked the student body to capacitate themselves whiles pursuing academia to be able to maintain its significance and to make unalienable the views of Ghanaian students in the decision making process of this nation.

In his keynote address, Lawyer Ace urged the students to be ready after completion of the various programs in the tertiary to, "LEARN, LEARN and RE-LEARN" when they gain an opportunity to put to task all they were taught in the lecture halls. He also identified the poor correlation between the amount of wealth in natural resources on the African continent especially Ghana and the level of our development as a continent and country, re iterating his stance that "BRAINS develop COUNTRIES not NATURAL RESOURCES", challenging Ghanaian students to develop themselves intellectually to contribute significantly in analysing and making inputs into national policies, budget statements, bills among other issues of national concern, as we they activley engage stakeholders  within the country.

The event saw among other things, the presentation of a citation to Prof. Stephen Adei,  former Rector of the the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration ( GIMPA ) as an Educational Ambassador and Miss Hawa Suleiman Issah, host of the Day Break Show on TV Africa, as a student Ambassador.

The Executive Council of NSA led by Mr. Prince David Orchill and the Chairman for the event Mr. Yaw Ampofo Ankrah  officially declared open,  Nominations for the 2016 edition of the National Students Awards from 20th March, 2016 to 20th May, 2016.

Below is the list published by the Executive Council as categories for this year's National Student Awards (NSA)

A. STUDENT HALL OF FAME AWARDS
1. Student Personality of the year
2. Most Innovative Student in Engineering
3. Most Innovative student in IT
4. Most Outstanding Student in Agriculture
5. Student Personality in Filming
6. Student Sports Personality of the Year
7. Student President of the year
8. School Prefect of the year
9. Student Secretary of the year
10. Student Women Commissioner of the year
11. Student Treasurer /Financial Secretary/Financial Controller of the year
12. Student Entrepreneur of the year
13. Student Presenter of the year
14. Student Author of the year
15. Student Hall of the Year
16. Campus Group of the year

B. CORPORATE PLATINUM AWARDS
1. Student Bank of the year
2. Student Insurer of the year
3. Student Bookshop of the year
4. Student Telco of the year
5. Student beverage of the year
6. Student Media of the year

In order to nominate a person or company, potential nominees were admonished to  kindly visit the NSA website at www.nsaghana.org and locate 2016 NOMINATIONS which will be filled and submitted online.

Additionally the Executive Director of NSA urged nominees to download the NSA handbook from the website for more information on the requirements for each category, and qualification criteria.

By:
Kwame Asare - Antwi
Master of Ceremony