Buisla South lawmaker, Dr Clement Apaak, has said that the National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration will sustain the implementation of the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative if the party wins the elections.
He says that the budgetary allocation to the Office of the President will be reduced drastically as part of measures to raise revenue to fund the initiative.
Speaking on the News Central on TV3 on Tuesday, August 13, Dr Apaak indicated that currently, the budgetary allocation to the office of the presidency under President Akufo-Addo is in billions of Cedis.
This will be reduced under the Mahama administration, he said.
In addition to this, he said, the government will tackle corruption and bock revenue leakages in order to raise funds for this programme.
Explaining what occasioned the announcement of the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative the ranking member on the education committee of Parliament said “in our interactions with young people, given the challenges that they face we became intimately aware that one of the challenges in accessing and taking their places in tertiary education had to do with the ability, particularly for first-year students to pay.
“As a party whose focus is, as expressed by the flagbearer, to address the challenge of youth unemployment, it was decided that one of the ways that we can assist young people to pursue academic dreams is to propose a policy that will allow young people to go through the first year of university education free of charge.”
Asked how the programme will be sustained, he answered “we can mobilise the resources.
“Currently the budgetary allocation to the Office of the President has been ballooned into billions of Cedis.
“We will not be making those levels of allocation to the office of presidency. With that, we should be able to sustain the programme. we will also block revenue loopholes.”
The Youth Manifesto launched by the National Democratic Congress has many promises.
One that seems to resonate with the target audience most is the “No Fee Stress Initiative”.
Details of this policy are, however, not certain as two documents that were read at the same event had varying explanations on what prospective level 100 students stand to benefit.
It added, “Redeploy the Student Loan Trust Fund Plus (SLTF Plus) to give continuing students the option to utilise students’ loans to finance directly their university fees to guarantee the peace of mind of the student to study”
However, in his 7-paged speech former president John Mahama, who launched the document stated, “We will also launch the ‘No Fee Stress Initiative,’ providing fee-paying support to eligible students through the Student Loan Trust Fund (STLF).
Undoubtedly, the ‘No Fee Stress Initiative’ is such great news, thus some observers have questioned why the flagbearer of the NDC chose to be economical with his speech on that financially relieving announcement.
They expected that John Mahama would tout this novelty in tertiary education funding. The critics say his explanation of the “No Fee Stress Initiative,” as contained in his speech, is not different from offering loans to tertiary students, a policy that is already in existence.
Those who seem to appreciate his approach say once the details have been captured in the manifesto, there was no need for Mr Mahama to spend time explaining further.
Yet, others have said that the seeming unclarity will be cleared when the larger NDC Manifesto is out doored.
Still, some say it will serve the party’s interest to put paid to this discussion by issuing a press release tomorrow morning to state the policy proposal without any ambiguity.
Until then, the question is, will level 100 students enjoy ‘No Academic Fees’ policy under a John Mahama government in 2025?
Watch John Mahama delivering his speech here:
