GETFund Foreign Scholarship Application ; Eduwatch & IFEST Petition MoE and Parliament to Stop it
GETFund Foreign Scholarship Application: Eduwatch & IFEST Petition MoE and Parliament to Stop It
Africa Education Watch (Eduwatch) and the Institute for Education Studies (IFEST-Ghana) have raised concerns regarding an advertisement by the Ghana Education Trust Fund (GETFund) inviting applications for Foreign Masters Scholarships. According to Section 2(2b) of the GETFund Act, 2000 (Act 581), the Fund is meant to provide supplementary funding to the Scholarship Secretariat for granting scholarships to brilliant but needy students to study in second cycle and accredited tertiary institutions in Ghana, not for directly administering Foreign Scholarships.
GETFund Postgraduate Scholarship Call for Application – Portal Login
Unapproved Expenditure
In March 2024, Parliament approved a GHC 3.9 billion allocation to GETFund based on a specific distribution formula, which did not include GETFund Scholarships. Therefore, GETFund’s plans to spend directly on Foreign Scholarships in 2024/25 are outside the approved expenditure items in the 2024 GETFund Formula approved by Parliament, making them illegal.
Non-Responsive Students’ Financial Assistance Regime and Gross Tertiary Enrolment
In 2017/18, Ghana aimed to achieve a 40% Gross Tertiary Enrolment (GTE) by 2030, up from a baseline of 116.97%. Despite unprecedented 60% WASSCE pass rates in core subjects, the 2023 GTE attainment level was just 19.202%, with a secondary-tertiary transition rate of 34%. This highlights significant financial barriers to tertiary education. GETFund is mandated to support the Student Loan Scheme to provide financial assistance to needy students, but the scheme is underfunded, preventing about 30% of applicants from accessing the loan. Even those who receive approvals face funding issues, causing some students to drop out or take on menial jobs to survive. The average student loan amount of GHC 2,250 per year is insufficient compared to the GHC 400,000 cost of a one-year foreign Masters scholarship, making it unreasonable for GETFund to consider awarding such scholarships currently.
Foreign Scholarships and Value For Money
A review of non-bilateral public foreign scholarships in Ghana shows that over 95% of the programs are available locally at Ghanaian universities and cost 20 times less than studying abroad. This does not ensure value for money and contradicts the President’s pledge to protect the public purse.
Unprioritized Spending
Ghana is currently experiencing economic difficulties, characterized by expenditure cuts, increased taxation, and the need for prudent spending of limited local revenues. Spending scarce education sector resources on foreign scholarships for Masters students studying courses available locally is wasteful and does not represent prioritized spending in a sector where over 5,000 basic schools operate under trees, sheds, and dilapidated structures.
Reforming Public Scholarships – The Big Picture
The 2019 GETFund Performance Audit Report, which audited scholarships from 2012 to 2018, found that the GETFund Secretariat acted outside its mandate by directly administering scholarships instead of funding the Scholarship Secretariat to administer public scholarships. The Auditor-General recommended that GETFund abide by Section 2(2b) of the GETFund Act, desist from administering foreign scholarships, and transfer funds to the Scholarship Secretariat for administration.
Eduwatch and IFEST will continue to work with the government to pursue legal and institutional reforms to improve transparency, accountability, and effectiveness. Proposals include strengthening the Scholarships Secretariat into a single scholarships authority accountable to Parliament and decentralizing tertiary scholarships to public tertiary institutions under the regulation of a Scholarships Authority.
Demands
In light of the above, Eduwatch and IFEST make the following demands:
- The Minister for Education instructs GETFund to cease the ongoing Foreign Scholarship Application process.
- Parliament injuncts GETFund from spending on Foreign Scholarships, as it is unapproved by Parliament and amounts to wasteful spending of taxpayers’ money.
- Presidential Candidates in the upcoming elections commit to reforming the public scholarship system to make it meritorious, effective, efficient, transparent, and sustainable.
Accra, 10th June, 2024
Source: Eduwatch Newsletter
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