Barking & Dagenham College’s Jephta is named runner-up at Student of the Year Awards

A student from Barking & Dagenham College did fantastically well, narrowly missing out on first place at the Association of Colleges’ Young Student of the Year award.

This is the third accolade that 19 year old Jephta Asamoah, who is deaf, has achieved. On the night, Jephta said: “I am so thankful for the wonderful opportunities that Barking & Dagenham College has given me and to be nominated as an AoC finalist is just fantastic.

“Applying to the College has been the best decision of my life so far.

“I am here to break the stigma of deafness, if we are given the right support; we are able to do the same things as hearing people.”

David Hughes, Chief Executive of the Association of Colleges, said:

“Each year the level of applications is extremely high, and it goes to show the fantastic work that students are doing in colleges as well as the lengths colleges go to support their students.

“Jephta has done amazingly well to finish second and he should rightly be proud of his achievements.”

The awards were announced on Monday 19 November at an evening of celebration as the Association of Colleges also premiered a programme partnership between AoC and ITN Productions, showcasing some of the ways that colleges are transforming the lives of more than two million people across England and how vital colleges are to the future of the British economy in the 21st century.