Accra, April 10, GNA – The Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) has urged the Government to, through an act of Parliament, establish a Scholarships Commission to regulate the management of all public scholarships, including public-corporate scholarship schemes.
Eduwatch said there was an urgent need to reform the management of public scholarships in Ghana in line with international best practices to achieve increased effectiveness, efficiency, transparency, and accountability.
This is contained in a press release from Eduwatch on the recent issues of the Scholarship Secretariat allegedly awarding scholarships to politically exposed persons other than the needy.
The Fourth Estate, a media organisation, made a publication on Ghana’s Scholarships Secretariat dubbed: “Scholarship Bonanza” on the award of scholarships meant for the needy to elite politically aligned persons and their families.
According to the statement, the proposed Public Scholarships Law to establish the Commission should make provision for a transparent beneficiary selection process and focus on local tertiary scholarships for needy and STEM students.
The statement said it should transfer the responsibility for managing all public scholarships to faculties, under the supervision of the management of tertiary institutions and regulation of the Scholarships Commission.
Also, restrict the granting of foreign scholarships to only programmes unavailable in-country, yet relevant to labour market demand in Ghana.
The statement said the law should facilitate a partnership framework between tertiary institutions and public service institutions for the delivery of relevant skills development interventions to public sector workers under the Scholarship Scheme.
“It should ban any public agency or company from operating a parallel scholarship scheme and make the Scholarships Commission accountable to the Parliament of Ghana and the Auditor-General,” the statement added.
It said prudent and cost-effective scholarship management required public funds to be used to support overseas education that produced talents that were hard to come by or unavailable in Ghana but were highly valuable in the Ghanaian job market.
“Regretfully, many programmes funded by the foreign scholarship window are up to 11 times cheaper at Ghanaian tertiary institutions than they are in foreign universities,” it added.
The Ghana Scholarships Secretariat was established in 1960 under the Office of the President to oversee the administration of all government scholarships, both domestically and internationally.
The goal of the Scholarships Secretariat is to use public and donor funds to provide scholarships to deserving workers and brilliant but financially needy students at a minimal cost of attendance to develop human resources in support of the growth and development of the country.
GNA