The Centre for Public Opinion and Awareness (CenPOA) has rejected calls for Ghana’s oil revenue to be used to finance the government’s No Fees Stress Policy, describing it as politically motivated.
Executive Director of CenPOA, Michael Donyina Mensah, in an interview on Morning Starr with Naa Dedei Tettey stated that while the policy seeks to ease access to tertiary education, the country’s more urgent challenge lies in fixing persistent gaps at the basic and secondary school levels.
According to him, the proposal as a misplaced priority driven by politics rather than necessity.
“As I’m talking to you right now, we still have some children who go to study under trees. So there are definitely very important concerns regarding the quality and access to basic education. Now, when you come to the senior high school, which is a three senior high school program, we are having some hints that it is likely that the double track system is still going to exist in this coming academic year, which means that we still have some challenges with basic and secondary education, which really needs some investment.
And for us not to really get to focus on that and get that right and really get to complete that and then now shift our idea to tertiary education, which I personally think is politically motivated anyway,” he argued, adding that shifting focus to tertiary subsidies risks leaving fundamental problems unresolved.
His comments follow Education Minister Haruna Iddrisu’s proposal that 2.5% of Ghana’s oil revenue be earmarked for scholarships and bursaries to sustain the No Fees Stress Policy.
The Minister, addressing a Students Loan Trust Fund stakeholders’ meeting last Friday, warned that depending solely on GETFund would not be sufficient to guarantee the programme’s survival.
CenPOA, however, insists that national resources must first be directed toward strengthening universal access to quality basic education before new financing models are created for tertiary support.
Source: Starrfm.com.gh
