Civil society organizations (CSOs) operating in the education sector have called for an immediate halt to all foreign master’s programme scholarships.

Their position is in response to an advertisement by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) calling for applications for foreign master’s programme scholarships, which the CSOs described as a waste of taxpayers’ scarce resources.

According to the CSOs, including Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) and the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST-Ghana), the action by GETFund is illegal, a deviation from its original mandate and inconsistent with the limited scholarship role it has been authorised to perform; hence the need to stop the exercise.

Citing Section two (2b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581), the CSOs highlighted that the fund is to provide supplementary funding to the National Scholarship Secretariat for granting scholarships so brilliant but needy students can study at second cycle level and accredited tertiary institutions in Ghana – not to directly administer foreign scholarships.

IFEST holds the strong conviction that access to finance is increasingly becoming the greatest barrier to tertiary education as the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) is unresponsive to the needs of students.

The SLTF has failed to provide financial assistance for needy students to access tertiary education because it’s grossly underfunded, preventing about 30 percent of applicants from accessing the loan.

The current average student loan amount of GH₵2,250 a year cannot cover the cost of funding tertiary education in Ghana for just the first month of study, let alone the entire year; but students have no option but to manage.

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’

A review of non-bilateral public foreign scholarships in Ghana indicates that over 95 percent of the programmes are not only available locally in Ghanaian universities but cost 20 times more to study abroad. This does not assure value for money and must be discouraged, in line with President Nana Akufo-Addo’s pledge to protect the public purse.

Why parliament must oppose the move

The CSOs have also called on parliament to issue an injunction on the move to stop GETFund, as it did not allocate such an expenditure in its 2024 budgetary allocation.

They explained that parliament, in March 2024, approved a GH₵3.9billion allocation to GETFund based on a specific distribution formula that did not include GETFund scholarships. Plans by GETFund to spend directly on foreign scholarships in 2024/25 are therefore outside approved expenditure items in the 2024 GETFund formula approved by parliament, and are thus 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 should be recalled that the Auditor-General, in the 2019 GETFund Performance Audit Report, recommended that GETFund abide by Section two (2b) of the GETFund Act, desist from administering foreign scholarships and rather transfer funds to the Scholarship Secretariat for administration of scholarships.

This recommendation of the Auditor-General, which has since 2020 been upheld by GETFund, must continue.