The Executive Director of Africa Education Watch (EduWatch), Kofi Asare, has called on the government to upgrade the Scholarship Secretariat into an authority to have a regulatory framework to facilitate the disbursement and proper scrutiny of scholarship awards.
He said the current Secretariat under the presidency is “not fit for purpose.”
His call follows the Fourth Estates investigation dubbed “Scholarship Bonanza”, which delved into the activities of the scholarship secretariat in awarding huge scholarship amounts to relatives of politically exposed persons.
Notably, the daughter of former NPP Chairman Freddie Blay and a nephew of former Finance Minister Ken Ofori-Atta were among the beneficiaries, sparking a public outcry.
Kofi Asare, reacting to the exposé on TV3’s Ghana Tonight programme on Thursday, April 11, stated, among other things, that “it’s heartwarming to note that the OSP has taken an interest in the happenings at the scholarship secretariat.”
Mr. Asare admonished the political class to be “nationalistic” and not to see scholarships as “an opportunity to reward party loyalists and the political elites.”
“But an opportunity for the nation to develop critical skills that it doesn’t have locally,” he emphasised.
Prior to the OSP revelation of an ongoing investigation in the activities of the scholarship secretariat, the leading education think tank had made some recommendations to help streamline the work of the secretariat.
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Among the recommendations, according to Kofi Asare, is a scholarship authority.
“We need a scholarship authority. The current secretariat under the presidency is not fit for purpose. It has no legal framework and eventually operates under the whim and caprice of the presidency.”
He maintained that such an arrangement is not “sufficient enough and not consistent with best practices in public sector management.”
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He further noted that, as an authority, the secretariat will become a regulatory body that will regulate “how scholarships are administered and managed” at various faculties.
Moreover, Mr. Asare stressed that this will equally ensure that these faculties will be “whipped in line or conformed” to the policy and regulatory framework of the authority.
Meanwhile, the Executive Secretary of the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST-Gana), Dr. Peter Partey Anti, has called on President Akufo-Addo to institute a commission of inquiry to “have a second look into the operations” of the Scholarship Secretariat.