Civil society organizations (CSOs) in the education sector are demanding an immediate halt to all foreign master’s program scholarships.
They argue that an advertisement by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for such scholarships is a misuse of taxpayers’ money and goes against the fund’s intended purpose.
According to CSOs like Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) and the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST-Ghana), the GETFund’s actions are illegal and do not align with its mandate.
They cite Section 2(b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581), which specifies that the fund should provide supplementary funding to the National Scholarship Secretariat for scholarships at second cycle and tertiary institutions within Ghana.
IFEST strongly believes that access to finance is a major obstacle to tertiary education, particularly due to the inadequacy of the Student Loan Trust Fund (SLTF).
The SLTF, being underfunded, fails to provide sufficient financial aid to needy students, leaving around 30 percent of applicants without access to loans.
The current average student loan amount of GH₵2,250 per year falls short of covering the expenses associated with tertiary education in Ghana, making it difficult for students to afford their studies.
However, GETFund is willing to support the average cost of a one-year foreign Masters scholarship worth GH₵400,000.
“For GETFund to even conceive the idea of awarding foreign Masters’ scholarships in Ghana today is unconscionable,” stated Peter Anti, Executive Director of IFEST.
With the 2023 Gross Tertiary Enrollment (GTE) rate stated to be 19.2 percent amid a 34 percent secondary-tertiary transition rate, especially when Ghana is recording an unprecedented 60 percent WASSCE pass rate in Core Subjects, the Ministry of Education (MoE) must be concerned about the inability of senior high school graduates to further their education due to financial challenges.
The MoE must also be worried that Ghana’s set target to achieve 40 percent GTE by 2030 – as announced in 2018 – after five years has only moved up by three percent from the previous 16.97 percent.
“The decision to spend scarce education sector resources on foreign scholarships for Masters’ students who end up studying courses existing in Ghana is not only wasteful but does not represent prioritised spending in a sector with over 5,000 basic schools under trees, sheds and dilapidated structures in the 21st century,” Executive Director-Eduwatch Kofi Asare stated.
Foreign scholarships and ‘Value for Money’
An assessment of non-bilateral public foreign scholarships in Ghana reveals that more than 95 percent of these programs are already offered by local Ghanaian universities.
Moreover, studying abroad through these programs costs approximately 20 times more than studying locally.
This lack of cost-effectiveness raises concerns about the judicious use of funds and contradicts President Nana Akufo-Addo’s commitment to safeguarding public finances.
Why parliament must oppose the move
The CSOs have urged Parliament to intervene by halting GETFund’s actions, citing a lack of budgetary allocation for such expenditures in the 2024 fiscal year.
They clarified that Parliament approved a GH₵3.9 billion allocation to GETFund in March 2024, following a specific distribution formula that did not encompass scholarships.
Therefore, GETFund’s plans to allocate funds directly to foreign scholarships in the 2024/25 period fall outside the approved expenditure items outlined in Parliament’s 2024 GETFund formula, rendering them illegal.
“We urge parliament to prevent GETFund from spending on foreign scholarships, not just because it is unapproved by parliament but also amounts to wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money,” they stated.
The CSOs have also urged the Minister for Education, Yaw Osei Adutwum, to instruct GETFund to cease the ongoing foreign scholarship application process.
Auditor-General on GETFund
It’s worth noting that the Auditor-General’s 2019 GETFund Performance Audit Report recommended adherence to Section 2(b) of the GETFund Act, urging GETFund to refrain from managing foreign scholarships and instead allocate funds to the Scholarship Secretariat for scholarship administration.
This recommendation, endorsed by GETFund since 2020, should be maintained.