Mr Felix Kwakye-Ofosu, Deputy Minister for Information and Media Relations, on Friday said that government scholarships would now be restricted to cover only courses that are not available in the country's tertiary institutions.

He said for the country to maximize benefits from those training programmes, government would also ensure transparency by awarding scholarships to only those who deserve them.

Mr Kwakye-Ofosu, who announced these during the daily media briefings at the Flagstaff House, Kanda, said the move was to reduce the number of students that were seeking government scholarship to study abroad.

He said selection of students would also be based on the relevance of courses to the socio-economic development of the country.

The deputy minister indicated that President John Mahama had directed the ministries of education and finance to expedite action on payments to those institutions.

He said the President had also tasked the two ministries to come out with a clear and transparent modality of selection that would ensure that students would be selected based on qualification and merit.

Mr Kwakye-Ofosu explained that with the establishment of more public and private tertiary institutions in the country, it was quite easier to train more Ghanaians in the country. Issues on government scholarships hit major headlines in the country a couple of weeks ago as some foreign educational institutions had threatened to expel Ghanaian students studying abroad for their inability to pay boarding and tuition fees.

Subsequently, government gave the assurance that it was working around the clock to pay all the arrears of the students studying outside the country.