Scholarship Secretariat Has Done Better With New Policies And Programs To Make The Scheme Better

New Patriotic Party’s (NPP) Director of Communications, Richard Ahiagbah is of the view that the politics of equalization with the scandal that has hit the Scholarship secretariat is not needed.

According to him, the solution to the problem at hand is “reforming the system to stipulate clear rules and standards to regulate access to the facility”.

He believes that regardless of the challenges at hand, the Scholarship Secretariat has done better with new policies and programs to make the scheme better and that is what should be the focus.

“The Scholarship Secretariat has done commendable work since 2017 by decentralizing the application procedure to the districts that an independent committee manages. The district committees include the MP, representatives of the traditional authority, the DCE or MCE, the District Education rep, and the Scholarship Secretariat staff.

He continued “Much work has been done to improve administration and access to scholarships; now, our conversation’s focus should be on further reforms in the application process to exclude some category of persons because the current regime does not expressly exclude anybody from applying for or benefiting from scholarships.”

Media Entity, Fourth Estate in their latest investigative piece has revealed that scholarships meant for the needy in society are being given to well-to-do individuals, politicians, and their associates.

While some needy but brilliant students are not given access to the funding, some politicians and their associates are given twice to pursue courses that are run by Ghanaian universities abroad.

The outrage following the Fourth Estate Report on some scholarship awards by the Scholarship Secretariat is understandable, but we must note the following:

The outrage following the Fourth Estate Report on some scholarship awards by the Scholarship Secretariat is understandable, but we must note the following:

1. The Scholarship Secretariat provided the Fourth Estate with 64,411 scholarship beneficiaries between 2019 and 2020.…

— Richard Ahiagbah (@RAahiagbah) April 9, 2024