‘No academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative was made advisedly to cure a major challenge – Otokunor

He recounted how difficult it is for students to gain a university education due to their inability to pay.

“This policy was made advisedly to cure the major challenge of fees that over 45 students go through,” he said on the Key Points on TV3.

For his part, a professor at the University of Ghana Ransford Gyampo said given the fact that some students are unable to pay for their admission fees at the universities, the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ will help those needy but brilliant students.

Prof Gyampo says that initially when he heard about the policy announcement he was worried because he thought it would take away the sources of revenue for the universities to run their operations vis-a-vis the dwindling of the government subventions.

However, he said, the assurance by Mr Mahama that government subventions to the universities will be increased and released timely settles the doubt in his mind.

“In a way, I may be tempted to agree with him given what I have seen, we pay fees for people, ” he said on the Key Points on TV3 on Saturday, August 17.

He added “My heartbeat beating because in a way he is taking out a huge chunk of money from the universities to cater for other expenses.

“Over the years govt subventions to universities have dwindled, to the point that money can only pay salaries but universities and it’s running here beyond paying salaries, there should be money to pay for light bills, and water bills. ”

Mr Mahama while explaining the policy proposal said that the ‘no academic fees for level 100 students’ initiative will cost between 270 million and 290 million Cedis.

He assured Ghanaians that his administration would raise money to fund this project.

Addressing a gathering in Juapong on Tuesday, August 13, Mr Mahama said “we have costed it and we approximate that for all first-year students in public tertiary institutions, it should cost anywhere between  270 to about 290 million Ghana Cedis.  Let me tell you something, the president, a few years ago,  his travel budget in nine months amounted to 69 million Cedis, they held one cabinet retreat at the presidency, it cost almost 5 million Cedis.

He added “we do not want, especially in the first year when the students are coming in for the first time for them to go through what we call fee stress, that is why we call it a ‘no fee stress policy’ and so we are saying that we can absorb the academic user fee but it will not affect the subventions of governments to the universities and institutions of higher learning.

“The subvention from the government has kept declining, we are going to increase the subventions but apart from that we will make sure that universities get their subventions on time so that they can balance their budget.”