Varsity Fees To Rise Again?

Student representative council of the University of Ghana has accused the Minister for State for tertiary education of imposing illegal and unconstitutional fees to championing government’s agenda of the full cost recovery policy.

Students at the medical school will be paying fees ranging from twenty five million cedis to sixty three million a year also new students to the law school will have to pay fifteen million cedis upwards whiles those for humanities and sciences will pay twenty to twenty four million cedis a year starting from the next academic semester. Residential fees have also been increased from ?1.8 million to ?3.4 million. Among other things the students accused the Minister of hiding under the cover of insufficient funds to run the university and introducing suicidal and obnoxious full recovery cost policy.

Addressing a press conference in Accra, the president of the student council, Mr. Peter Nana Aseidu revealed that it is a planned arrangement between government and the university authorities to privatize and commercialise tertiary institutions. He said this plot is illegal and unconstitutional and that students are prepared to fight against it and will be resisted from all fronts. The students leader said the Dean of Students Dr. Vladimir Antwi Danso stated categorically that the fees arraignment are in line with IMF policies that prohibits government from subsidising tertiary education.

He also expresses their disappointment in the way and manner in which the Ghana Education Trust Fund is being administered. He task the government as a matter of urgency to honour her obligation in the disbursement of the GETFund and stop the discretionary use of the fund without seeking the consent of the appropriate authorities since they came about though the toils of the blood their predecessors. They questioned when the GETFund became a local IMF or World Bank. He students will reject and condemned any attempts by the government to privatize and commercialise the university through the implementation full recovery cost.