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05.03.2013 Feature Article

A Cause Of Brain-Drain In Ghana

Foreign Affairs Minister, Hanna TettehForeign Affairs Minister, Hanna Tetteh
05.03.2013 LISTEN

For several months running, including years for some, Ghanaian students on scholarship abroad have been complaining about the non-payment of their maintenance stipends by the Scholarship Secretariat of the Government of Ghana.

It seems our Government is not really interested in these human resources, including the 250 students they shipped to Cuba recently to study medicine, those continuing on the same island, and others in Venezuela, Great Britain, Turkey, etc.

What the Government and its scholarship secretariat doesn't know is that, they are not complying with their part of the agreement to pay maintenance allowances to the students during their study abroad so they could serve the State for an agreed number of years when they complete their studies.

First of all, it's not fair for a government to ship its citizens abroad for education when it should have built schools for those purposes, and worse of all, abandoning those young men and women to die of misery.

Find out how many students Ghana has studying abroad and how much is spent on them to study things they could have studied here in Ghana for less and better! Yet, our myopic governments, especially this current one, seems to love the idea of sending so many students abroad.

History is likely to repeat itself, because of the negligence of our Government. In the early days of the P/NDC, several youth were sent to Cuba to study university courses, and unfortunately, they were ignored and left to suffer, by clue-less leaders we continue to have today. A lot of these students did not return to Ghana because they felt betrayed by their country.

These is likely to happen again if this other NDC government doesn't stop playing irresponsible and do what they were (not) elected to do.

This is how we treat our human resources in our country, that's why they don't perform as they might want to. Those who get fed up back bag and baggage and leave for places where they are taken seriously. This is what happens when some politicians don't cut their coats according to their sizes – trying to be more intelligent than they are.

At the end of the day, the negligence and/or ignorance of the Government makes the average Ghanaian tax payer suffer the consequences. After all, the politician cushions himself with money he has picked from the tax payers' pockets!

He doesn't really care. And when they have to address the nation, they show their skills in creative writing, instead or tacking the bull by the horn.

If any well-meaning Ghanaian is reading this, please do something. Ghanaians are all over the world, under the “sponsorship” of our Government, but have not been paid for months/years, and the government keeps lying to everybody that all is well. What will benefit us all in the end? That those students return home to serve us or that the get frustrated and go elsewhere, like it has happened in the past?

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