TEIN UMaT speaks on recent school fees increment: Fees must drop

Ghanaians are reeling under excruciating hardship with inflation hovering around 50.4% for the month of November. Prices of goods and commodities are simply unaffordable. It has become pretty difficult for workers to make ends meet as a result of the hardship in the country. All will agree that Ghanaians need a lot of cushioning to survive this era.

With schools about to resume, if anything new should be introduced for students, then it should be geared towards cushioning them from this recent hardship. On the contrary, the decision of duty bearers is one that will do public university students more harm than good. In a time when we, as students, are complaining of hikes in hostel prices and many students are yet to secure accommodation, a significant increment in school fees adds insult to injury.

The 15% school fees increase which was approved by parliament is one that is unfavourable to students and yet some universities are going overboard to increase by as much as 40%. If students are complaining of a 15% increment, then how much more increment that is as high as 40%?

This new development has the potency of rendering a considerable number of students in the various public tertiary institutions dropouts. Let us not forget that for every student that drops out of school, the country loses human resources that could help the advancement of the country’s goals in years to come.
For a government that prides itself on increasing the number of SHS graduates with its Free SHS policy, increasing school fees at the university level is simply negating the gains of the Free SHS policy. What is the essence of having a lot of SHS graduates if you will in turn block majority of them from having access to tertiary education by increasing university fees unreasonably?

Just as students were able to access secondary education regardless of their financial backgrounds by cushioning them with the Free SHS policy, the government should also work on pecking tertiary fees at a reasonable rate that will accommodate students regardless of financial background.

The 15% increment is excruciating and worse is the outrageous percentage increments some universities are handing out.

TEIN UMaT, as a network of students equally burdened by the recent economic hardship, wishes to express utter displeasure with the decision to increase school fees by 15% and also condemn the actions of some universities in going beyond the 15%. We join calls for the National Union of Ghana Students and other student unions to engage Parliament and the Ghana Tertiary Education Council for a reduction of fees.

In the interim, TEIN UMaT will be working with other student blocs on our campus to push for the university management to comply with the 15% cap while external unions engage parliament and the Ghana Tertiary Education Council to further reduce the 15%.

#FeesMustDrop