Resetting Ghana Manifesto: Free Level 100 Education and New Scholarship Regime Excellent

School fees for tertiary education has been a great source of worry to many students and parents. Those who are not able to settle fees are forced to look on the path of politicians including parliamentarians, party officers, chief executives, assembly members, etc to supplement their efforts.

For instance, on daily basis, we find people at the offices of Members of Parliaments (MP's) seeking help to pay their wards school fees at the tertiary level. This has put enormous pressure on MP's with some unable to raise much to support their constituents. Those who are not able to do sometimes deprive their constituents of visits to listen to their concerns and forward same for redress at parliament.

It is commendable that John Mahama is promising to "implement a ‘No-Academic-Fees’ policy for all first-year students in all public tertiary institutions." Additionally, all persons with disabilities will enjoy free tertiary education irrespective of the level you find yourself. This is going to take away more than one-forth of the total number of students with the heavy burden of having to pay tertiary fees in all the academic years of an NDC government.

The manifesto also has mechanisms aimed at insuring that students who are not able to pay fees from level 200 going are able to take advantage of these mechanisms to pay their fees. Continuing students are going to be provided with financial assistance through the reintroduction and redeployment of our Student Loan Trust Fund Plus (SLTFP) and a reformed scholarship regime.

This is going to make money available for students to be loaned reasonable amounts to pay their fees and enjoy a comfortable life on campus. Reforming the scholarship regime will give the poor the opportunity to get access to scholarships and banish the statusquo where highly connected and even parliamentarians benefit.

To achieve this, John Mahama promises to ban political appointees and their children from applying for schorlarships at the launch of the party's manifesto. "No political appointee must apply for the scholarships; you must pay. Children underprivileged, those who cannot afford it, are the ones who must get the scholarship." This is a positive development because the scholarship Secretariat will to washed away of the bad image it has attracted for itself in recent years.

A recent report by The Forth Estate revealed that; "in 2019-2020, the Scholarship Secretariat spent at least 291,480 pounds sterling (GBP), 146,502 US dollars (USD) and 7,685 Canadian dollars (CAD) respectively on influential individuals and the associates of the political elite." This translates to a total of GH¢8.21million at the current exchange rate using the Bank of Ghana as reference.

The Forth Estate further reported; "there is also the case of the family member of President Nana Akufo-Addo and former Finance Minister, Ken Ofori-Atta whose path to law school in the United Kingdom (UK) was cleared with a GBP16,740 scholarship." This cannot be allowed to continue and President Mahama is promising to correct this and give scholarships back to the poor.

President Mahama is determined to reduce the cost of tertiary education even further by promising to promote the establishment of Tertiary Endowment Funds (TEF) in partnership with alumni, philanthropists, corporate Ghana among others to support students in public tertiary universities. This is innovative and must be celebrated because a common fund is created to allow abled and well do Ghanaians to contribute their quata to transform the lives of many brilliant but poor students.

The cost of accommodation has also been a bane on our campuses. President Mahama will implement a bed for all programme by investing in building students' hostels and facilitate the expansion of accommodation facilities for tertiary students through PPP Schemes and engaging private investors in student housing to regulate accommodation prices. With this, many beds will be created for all at the universities and a regulated pricing regime will end extortion.

The proposals for tertiary students must be welcomed and all Ghanaians especially tertiary and potential tertiary students must do well to ensure that President Mahama succeeds to implement what is contained in the Resetting Ghana Manifesto to ameliorate the worse conditions we are currently experiencing at our campuses.