The latest campaign promise by the National Democratic Congress has got tongues wagging.
The NDC’s ‘No academic fees’ policy, targeted at level 100 students aims to alleviate the financial burden on parents and students by absorbing academic fees for level 100 tertiary students.
Concerns have been raised about the feasibility of the policy with regards to funding, accommodation and continuity of schooling, for beneficiaries who probably wouldn’t be able to afford fees for subsequent years.
And some analysts say it must be subjected to scrutiny.
Acting Dean of the School of Education and Leadership, Jonathan Fletcher said, “This is the time for all of us to go and see what was promised and what was delivered.”
The question then remains, how feasible is this policy?
Statistics from the Ghana Tertiary Education Commission reveals a widening gap between SHS graduates who are given admission into public tertiary institutions, and those who actually honour the admissions.
Out of an average number of 118,000 students who received admission in the 2020/2021 academic year, only 74,970 honoured the invitation leaving out 43,030.
The deficit, according to the Africa Education Watch is hinged primarily on financial constraints and the inadequacy as well as delays in student loan disbursement.
The NDC’s latest promise intends to deal with the gap.
In essence, if given the nod, the next NDC administration would absorb approximately GHC3,000 per student.
We visited the University of Ghana campus and the reactions were interesting.
One student said, “I see it to come and take away a lot of burden of those who cannot afford university education. But implementing it is going to be a big problem. Those private investors on campus they are charging exorbitant amount of money and they are not giving us any better service at the halls.”
Another said, “I think it’s a very good idea. I think it would be much better if the policy will be in favour of those who actually needs it and not every person who is coming to level 100.“
But while the policy has been under careful examination, flagbearer of the NDC John Dramani Mahama has been offering some clarity.
Speaking on his campaign tour at the Ho Technical University, he explained;
“We’ve costed it and we approximate that for all first-year students, in public tertiary institutions, it should cost anywhere between 270 to about 290 million Ghana cedis. I think that we can do it by cutting down on waste and cutting down on corruption. We are going to increase the subvention but apart from that we are going to make sure that the universities get their subventions on time.“
Meanwhile, the President of the UG branch of the University Teachers Association of Ghana, Prof Ransford Gyampo has described John Mahama’s clarification as laudable.
“If truly subventions will be increased, if truly, they will be released timeously, then I think it will not hurt the universities and if it wouldn’t hurt the universities then why not I’m for it.”
Even so he’s calling for a broader dialogue.
“I think that president Mahama must also make use of the opportunity to meet the entire teaching fraternity to dialogue with them and let us appreciate what you want to do holistically,” he said.
A position held by the National UTAG President, Professor Akudugu.
Well, this policy remains only one amongst the myriad of other promises made by the party to improve the education sector.
It is left to be known what the actual sources of funding for the policy would be.
Source:3news.com