Vice President Aliu Mahama yesterday advised striking polytechnic students to return to school while they pursue the resolution of their grievances through appropriate channels.

Alhaji Mahama said the boycott of lectures by the students, which is of great concern to both the government and their parents, is detrimental to their educational development.

He was speaking at a meeting with the executive of the Association of Graduate Students, who called on him to discuss the revision of their bursary, thesis grant and the motivation of young graduates to encourage them to work in the universities.

The Vice President is the patron of the association.

Alhaji Mahama commended the graduate students for the maturity with which they petitioned the government to increase their bursaries and thesis grant and said they should influence their undergraduate and polytechnic counterparts to follow the same principles and procedure. The bursary of postgraduate students has been increased from one million cedis to two million cedis. The thesis grant for those pursuing the Doctor of Philosophy Degree has been increased from 30,000 cedis to 2.5 million cedis while that of Master Philosophy/Master Research Degree has gone up from 10,000 cedis to 1.5 million cedis.

Alhaji Mahama said the increasesn are substantial because the government wants the youth to pursue higher education to be well prepared to assume leadership positions in the public sector, educational institutions and industry.

The Vice President said: "It is very important for the youth to be motivated to become lecturers at the universities, where the present ones are largely old. We must certainly make life comfortable for lecturers so that potential ones would not seek jobs elsewhere for better wages." He pledged his support in their pursuit of their objectives and accepted their invitation to attend their annual conference on June 14 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.

Mr Paul Effah, Secretary to the National Council on Tertiary Education, explained that the new fees had not been paid because the National Scholarship Secretariat did not budget for the review.

Consequently, the GET Fund Secretariat was considering the proposal to pay the new rates so that the Scholarship Secretariat would absorb it in subsequent years.

Mr Emmanuel Newman, President of the association, appealed to the Vice President to ensure that the bureaucracy involved in the release of funds was minimised so that they would get their fund in time for their research.

"It is very important to encourage students to pursue their post-graduates programme in Ghana because the money spent on one student abroad could cater for 10 students locally, whose knowledge and expertise would be tapped for national development," he said.

He urged the Vice President to prioritise the motivation of young lecturers, saying that the present system favoured the retention on contract of the aged ones after their retirement.