National President of the University Teachers Association of Ghana (UTAG) Professor Mamudu Akudugu, has said that although there are students who need financial assistance, it is difficult to give the number of them who genuinely need that kind of help.
However, he said, even if the number of students needing help is just five, it is worth providing them with the support.
Speaking on the Ghana Tonight show on TV3 on Wednesday, August 14, Prof Mamudu Akudugu suggested that the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative should be targeted to specific students who genuinely need financial support.
He said a wholesale implementation of this initiative would not be the ideal action to take.
“Of course, there are students who are genuinely having financial constraints and cannot pay but as to how many of them they are we can’t tell as of this time.
“But even if it is just five students it is worth giving them support but that is why we also think that proper targeting of students who really need support to have a university education should be the way to go rather than the wholesale implementation of this policy,” he said.
No academic fees for level 100s policy: Proper targeting is required rather than the whole sale approach. – Prof. Mamudu Akudugu, UTAG National President#GhanaTonight pic.twitter.com/44IF9fFA8R
— #TV3GH (@tv3_ghana) August 15, 2024
Meanwhile, Flagbearer of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) John Dramani Mahama has said that the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative will cost between 270 million and 290 million Cedis.
He assured Ghanaians that his administration would raise money to fund this project.
Addressing a gathering in Juapong on Tuesday, August 13, Mr Mahama said “we have 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. Let me tell you something, the president, a few years ago, his travel budget in nine months amounted to 69 million Cedis, they held one cabinet retreat at the presidency, it cost almost 5 million Cedis.
“There is so much waste in the system and even if you look at the office of the president budget alone you will be able to cut to raise enough money to pay these academic facility user fees for all level hundred students. Do you know the budget for the office of the president? it is 2 billion Cedis every year, it is even now that IMF has come and they have cut it down, at a point it used to be 3 point something billion Cedis every year.”
He added “we do not want, especially in the first year when the students are coming in for the first time for them to go through what we call fee stress, that is why we call it a ‘no fee stress policy’ and so we are saying that we can absorb the academic user fee but it will not affect the subventions of governments to the universities and institutions of higher learning.
“The subvention from the government has kept declining, we are going to increase the subventions but apart from that we will make sure that universities get their subventions on time so that they can balance their budget.”
