💢💧GETFund at 15…The Ghanaian students’ Concern 💧💢
Exactly fifteen years ago, having come to terms with the woefully inadequate budgetary support to the educational sector, the Ghana Education Trust Fund was set up under Act 581, (of the Parliament of Ghana). It was quite rightfully named “The Heartbeat of the Students”. This fund was supposed to be a supplementary support to the educational sector.
In his book, GETFund, A NUGS Presidents’ Account, Dr. Edward Omane Boamah states that “The idea of an Educational Trust Fund was conceived, fertilized, implanted, nourished and hatched by students of Ghana during the turbulent era of the men on horseback, in the 1980’s because, paraphrasing a world bank report in 1985, subsequent governments after Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah progressively dwindled their budgetary allocation to the education sector.”
With stiff opposition from the military and later civilian government of the time to the idea, it never materialized until the late 1990’s seemingly fuelled by the “MMOBROWA STRUGGLE demonstration in 1999 and this ideas was again brought forth by the student leaders into the public’s discourse. This with the support of some friendly to the students struggle within government such as Mr. Kwame Peprah, Mr. Totobi Quarkyi and Dr. Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the GETFund was established in Sptember, 2000 with the promulgation of Act 581.
Per the Getfund Act:
1. The fund was to be funded through the imposition of an additional tax on all goods and services which attract V.A.T, allocation as may be prescribed by the Parliament and other donations.
2. The fund was to be entrusted in the hands of Board of Trustees…
It was the expectation of many a Ghanaian student as expressed in the NUGS that finally, “our educational hiccups had gotten the customary white thread to be laid on its scalp.” But contrary to this expectation, the trend of expenditure to follow was nothing either than reckless which has led to the emergence of an even more gloomy picture of our educational prospects as a country; even more pronounced than the early years of the fund.
The fund which was formed with the primary preoccupation of funding tertiary education (which is the sector capable of training young people with the skills to become productive citizens), has seen it's scope capriciously expanded to almost become the source of funding for Gahanna’s entire educational sector. Arbitrary spending has characterized the administration of the fund and this has seriously militated against the fund and its ability to seriously and meaningfully help support the growth of Ghana’s educational landscape.
The major pre-occupation of NUGS is advocacy in the educational sector. It therefore baffles every discerning Ghanaian student that the NUGS of recent years, has been conspicuously silent on the many months, running into years of areas which has not been paid to the fund by government. It is worthy of note that the cost of education is rising exponentially, however, governments commitment keeps dwindling. We recall that in 2009 the government withdrew a major part of its subsidy to tertiary education with the excuse of lack of funds. One wonders why a government that has increased taxes time without number at exponential rates, will show such negligence to a sector as important as education.
As if this is not enough, government for the past two years, has been trying very hard to introduce the payment of utilities to students. The ideas of cost sharing which was mooted by the Busia government, which has gone through many faces, is now rapidly becoming cost shifting unto the Ghanaian student. This is typified in the policies and approaches to funding education by the government of John Dramani Mahama.
In light of this, I as a concerned Ghanaian Student, seeing myself as a microcosm of the situation and expressing the mind of many millions of Ghanaian students call on all Ghanaians to rise up and give the government the needed pressure to do the right by transferring the accumulated monies to the Getfund. I also call for a review of the effectiveness of Getfund and further streamlining it to make it more effective.
For a strong GETfund will fuel Ghanaian students on government scholarship especially those abroad whose plight has become a quagmire in resent times, ensure the release of the thesis and bursary grants on time, support educational infrastructure, and to a large extent even benefit private tertiary institutions in Ghana.
It is very imperative that the NUGS leads this charge. The NUGS must rise from the ill motivated comma that it has slumbered into and act.
The millions of Ghanaian students who suffer the brunt of such negligence are waiting on them.
Long Live Ghana.
Long Live GETFund.
Aluta Continua, Victoria Acerta.
By
BOYE NII LANTEY WILLIAMS
#RESTORATION
#THE BOYE IS COMING
#NUGS MUST WORK AGAIN
© Issued by the Communication Team
