By Isaac Arkoh
Cape Coast, May 31, GNA – Mr Emmanuel Owusu, the President of the Graduate Students Association (GRASAG), has advocated the restructuring and retooling of the Scholarship Secretariat and GETFUND for enhanced and effective service delivery.
He said, “More than 100,000 members across the country and in the diaspora would want to see a restructuring and retooling of the operational structure of the Ghana Scholarships Secretariat and GETFund to provide equitable scholarship and funding opportunities for all students.”
He also urged the government to set up a National Research Secretariat under the Presidency that would work with academic and state institutions to drive the agenda of shaping national development through research.
Addressing the maiden GRASAG Presidential Lecture Series at the University of Cape Coast (UCC), Mr Owusu said prioritisation of post graduate education was a key driver for national development.
He said it was his expectation that research found space in informing policy formulation and implementation.
“We look forward to a future where Research shapes the fortunes of State-owned Enterprises, Judiciary, Legislature and Executive Arm of Government,” he noted.
Nonetheless, some GRASAG members the Ghana News Agency spoke with proposed the scrapping of the Scholarship Secretariat, in line with recent investigations that exposed how the Secretariat shared scholarship opportunities with politically exposed people.
They suggested a new arrangement where the GETFUD would rather provide scholarship funds to educational institutions to support deserving brilliant but needy students.
They indicated that the educational institutions already had systems that provided scholarships to brilliant but needy students, except that they lacked adequate funding.
To them, that option was better placed to identify genuine brilliant but needy students who required state scholarships.
Ms Letícia Owusu Asamoah, the GRASAG member, proposed a critical review of all courses that were supported by state scholarship to ensure that focus was placed on sponsorship of students studying STEM programmes.
She said the state did not gain any value in supporting students to travel abroad to study courses like Supply Chain Management, Marketing, MBA, among others.
He also asked the Secretariat to desist from supporting students to study courses that are already being taught in Ghanaian institutions.
“Sometimes the cost of supporting one student to study abroad is equivalent to supporting about ten students in Ghana. We should optimise our resources,” she advised.
Mr Daniel Ofori, a GRASAG member, wondered why the affluent and politically exposed appeared to get more scholarships to the neglect of students who really needed the facility.
“Of course, they are Ghanaians. But the principle of equity requires that the Scholarship Secretariat prioritises brilliant but needy students over and above these political elites who are already enjoying some largesse from the state.”
He said they should not push brilliant but needy Ghanaians to the margins of their development.
GNA