Prof Jane Opoku Agyemang, Education Minister
The Graduate Students’ Association of Ghana (GRASAG) has announced that it would picket at the Flagstaff House on September 21, 2016 if by the end of this week the Ministry of Finance and Economic Planning failed to release cheques for their unduly delayed bursary and thesis grants for the 2015/2016 academy year.
Rashid Kwesi Etuaful, National President of GRASAG who disclosed this at a press conference on Saturday during its First National Senate Meeting at the Ghana Technology University College (GTUC), Accra, called on all members from both public and private institutions pursuing various postgraduate programmess to join in the proposed exercise.
According to them, the association wonders “why the grants, which have been fixed as low as GH¢450 for Master of Business Administration (MBA) students; Master of Arts (MA) students; GH¢470 and GH¢700 for Master of Philosophy and PhD students respectively,” have been delayed to the extent that the academic year has virtually ended.
The angry students said that they had exhausted all avenues available and had duly followed the laid down procedures and would no longer wait, adding that they were calling the Finance Minister to release the cheques to the scholarship secretariat by Friday, 16th September, 2016, failure of which would result in the proposed action.
Mr Etuaful expressed worry that “over the past few years the excessive delay of allowance had caused students to go through unbearable hardship, particularly in the completion of our research work and many students find themselves stranded on the field collecting data.”
The association has therefore, called on the Government of Ghana to release the needed funds and find a lasting solution to the problem of delays.
The annual bursary and thesis grants are among five types of scholarships for public universities under the Local Tertiary Scholarship Awards of the Scholarships Secretariat. The Secretariat was established in January, 1960 as an extra-ministerial body under the Office of the President with a duty to administer and exercise central control over scholarship awards for capacity building so as to ensure effective manpower support for the national development agenda.
By Daniel Bampoe