International students contribute to the economy of countries they go to study in, and also help to enhance educational quality and cultural diversity. Some of these foreign students after completing their studies stay in the host country to work, thereby adding to the quality labour force of the country.
Against this backdrop, many countries have put measures in place to attract foreign students into their countries for the purposes of acquiring knowledge. Ghana is indeed doing well in this area, which is enhanced by her stable academic calendar.
In West Africa, Ghana is among one of the preferred choices for study. Reports showed that in 2020, students from Nigeria studying in Ghana were about 2,960 – followed by Ivory Coast and Benin with 258 and 187 students respectively. Mauritania and Cape Verde also had students studying in Ghana.
It is, therefore, worrisome to wake up to stories that forestall the progress of education in the country.
Just last week, we woke up to a disturbing story that the National Conference of Principals of Colleges of Education – Ghana (PRINCOF) has directed that teacher trainees will fund their own feeding from May 8, 2022.
According to PRINCOF, the directive was as a result of the inability of Colleges of Education to make payments for food items supplied to them due to non-payment of feeding grants by government.
PRINCOF noted in their release that food suppliers who had continued delivering supplies to these Colleges of Education for months without payment had withdrawn their services and will not supply food until they receive the monies owed them.
A few days after the directive, the Education Minister, Dr. Yaw Osei Adutwum, announced that Government, through the Ministry of Education has released an amount of GH¢67,942,652 to these Colleges of Education to cater for the feeding of teacher trainees. He stated that the government released the money because it wants to ensure that promises made to Colleges of Education are carried through.
Inasmuch as The Chronicle is happy with the release of the money, we cannot fathom why it had to take threats from PRINCOF and the teacher trainees before the money was released.
No matter how hard the Education Ministry try to deny the fact that its action was not a knee-jerk response, we cannot but hold the view that the Ministry acted on impulse.
If indeed the Ministry had already initiated processes to release funds to Colleges of Education to cater for the feeding of these teacher trainees as indicated by Mr Kwesi Kwarteng, an officer from the Ministry, how come none of the PRINCOF members got a hint of it?
This does not speak well of us as a country. We should not always allow nurses, teachers, doctors and workers to protest before we release monies or provide conditions of service due them. This does not speak well of a developing country that is trying to woo all kinds of investors into its country.
As stated earlier, having foreign students in your country is itself an avenue for generating foreign exchange and so let get our educational system working and take advantage of the foreign influx.
