The National Union of Ghana Students (NUGS) has rejected claims by the Ministry of Education that students are sufficiently represented under a civil society umbrella on the Scholarship Authority Board.
Speaking to Citi News, NUGS President Rashid Ibrahim Esq. argued that laws such as the GETFund Act explicitly recognise NUGS as the legitimate voice of students. He emphasised that representation on the Scholarship Authority Board must be explicitly stated in law, not merely implied.
The Union is calling for an urgent amendment to the Scholarship Authority Act to guarantee student representation on the board.
“We need an amendment of the Act, to include in it and to be explicitly provided, unambiguous, that there must be a student rep appointed by NUGS as it is seen in the GETFund Act. That is what we want but that was not addressed. We also needed a stakeholder engagement meeting with the Minister again, that was also not addressed. We were assured that it will be amended, that it will be inserted in the Act that we will have a rep. To our surprise, the Act has been passed with board inaugurated without student rep. We see it as a betrayal of trust,” he said.
Ibrahim warned that if the Ministry fails to respond, NUGS will escalate the matter to the highest offices in the country.
“If the ministry does not respond to our call, we intend to write an official petition to the President and the Speaker of Parliament and the Parliamentary Select Committee on Education for this issue to be addressed because if this issue is not addressed, I don’t think that the Ghanaian students will allow this matter to rest and as president, I will not even feel happy,” he added.
