Scholarships Validation Begins

Kingsley Agyemang

THE Ghana Scholarship Secretariat (GSS) has opened a nationwide validation process for scholarship applicants from all tertiary institutions across the country at a workshop in Ho, the Volta Regional capital.

The Registrar of GSS, Kingsley Agyemang, who performed the official opening ceremony of the validation process at the University of Health and Allied Sciences, said the workshop was, among other things, to introduce participants to the new reforms regarding scholarship application and administration, as well as the scholarship value chain.

Besides, the occasion was used to assure applicants of the government's commitment to ensure transparency in the process of the award of scholarship, as it retools the GSS to be more efficient to deliver on its mandate.

Mr. Agyemang warned persons parading themselves as officials of GSS to desist from extorting money from prospective applicants, while urging students not to fall for the fraudulent activities of these “goro boys.”

He pointed out that all official information would be communicated either through the GSS official application website or the office lines.

The GSS recently introduced new operational reforms to the education financial aid programme to deepen public trust, ensure transparency and restore public confidence in the awards of scholarship.

Mr. Agyemang told Ghanaian students in the United Kingdom recently that the GSS had been better placed to offer more scholarships to students at the tertiary level who are either studying in the country or abroad.

Decentralized Process

He said the GSS was liaising with the regional coordinating councils and the metropolitan, municipal, and district assemblies to establish a district scholarships review committee (DSRC) to decentralize the scholarship awarding processes to guarantee accessibility to all Ghanaian students.

“The objective of this initiative is the systematic decentralization of scholarship awarding processes with the view to increasing transparency and accessibility to available funding opportunities,” he stressed.

—Daily Guide