Government spends GH¢917m on No-Fees-Stress support for 321,807 students

The government has spent GH¢917 million so far to support 321,807 tertiary students under the No-Fees-Stress Policy, Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu has disclosed.

He said the funds were released from the Consolidated Fund as part of the Ministry of Education's budgetary support.

"The GH¢917 million is a direct flow from the Ministry of Finance from the Consolidated Fund as part of the Ministry of Education's budgetary support. Other releases have gone to the Students Loan Trust Fund (SLTF) from the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) for the students loan disbursement," he said.

Mr Iddrisu disclosed this at a stakeholder engagement on the implementation of the No-Fees-Stress Initiative at Dawu in the Eastern Region.

The engagement, organised by the SLTF, was held on the theme: "Strengthening No-Fees-Stress Implementation through Institutional Partnerships for Inclusive, Equitable and Sustainable Student Financing".

It brought together representatives from Vice Chancellors Ghana, Vice Chancellors of Technical Universities, Principals of Colleges of Education, the Federation of Ghana Medical Students, civil society organisations (CSOs) and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education.

Fulfilling Mahama's pledge

Mr Iddrisu said the No-Fees-Stress Initiative was part of President John Mahama's commitment under the 2024 National Democratic Congress Resetting Ghana Manifesto to reduce the financial burden of tertiary education on students and their families.

He said the commitment was translated into action on July 4, 2025, when the initiative was launched and placed under the implementation of the SLTF with funding from GETFund.

"Let me commend the management and leadership of the Students Loan Trust Fund, and the leadership and management of GetFund, for keeping this dream a reality under President Mahama's Reset.

"Arguably, and statistically, GH¢917 million has so far been spent to support students under the No-Fee-Stress, covering a student population of 321,807 students," he emphasised.

The Minister, however, identified delays in the release of budgetary allocations as one of the major challenges confronting the implementation of the policy.

He said timely disbursement of funds was critical to ensuring that financial constraints did not undermine the purpose of the initiative.

"So regardless of your financial standing, regardless of your geographical location, regardless of the status of your parents, an eligible Ghanaian who qualifies to access higher education must be supported by government to access higher education," he said.

Mr Iddrisu said the No-Fees-Stress Policy was now a permanent part of the government's approach to tertiary education financing.

He also noted that the government had, for the first time in many years, extended Students Loan Trust Fund support to students studying Law, describing the move as part of efforts to make legal education more accessible.

"We will do the same for medical education in the coming years.

As a true value of human capital development, maybe we should now accept that human capital development be construed as a strategic investment requirement of every government and sufficient budgetary allocation provided for it," he said.

SLTF outlines policy components

The Chief Executive Officer of the SLTF, Dr Saajida Shiraz, said the Fund, as a statutory agency under the Ministry of Education, was responsible for providing financial resources to support tertiary students.

She said the introduction of the No-Fees-Stress Policy had expanded the Fund's responsibilities over the past one-and-a-half years.

"we are contending with what we describe as an expanded mandate to the introduction of the government's flagship No-Fees-Stress Policy, which is a transformational initiative by President John Dramani Mahama to ensure that financial circumstance would not become a barrier to accessing tertiary education for any Ghanaian student".

According to Dr Shiraz, the policy has five main components: the no academic fee policy, free tertiary education for persons with disabilities, the Students Loan Plus initiative, an enhanced traditional loan scheme with higher loan amounts and reduced interest rates, and digitalisation of the system to make access to loans easier.

She said the Fund had also introduced a financing arrangement known as bridge funding to respond to the immediate financial needs of students seeking access to special education during the current academic year.

"So for this academic year, we came up with a very creative financing model to deal with the urgent funding needs of students now trying to access special education, and it is that funding we are calling bridge funding," she said.

The Board Chairperson of the SLTF, Cynthia Amerley Amarteifio, said access, inclusion, affordability and sustainability in tertiary education had been placed at the centre of the government's education agenda under President Mahama's Reset Agenda.